Logano a breath of fresh air although unproven in  Cup

Hate to enter potentially non-politically correct territory, but this new kid who has burst onto the NASCAR national scene like a blast of sea gull poop smack between the eyes makes me do it.

Whatever you think, that wasn't the anti-PC part. I live near the beach in Florida. Poop happens.

No, it occurred to me suddenly that wrapped around the truly great, racecars can be the great equalizer -- kinda like guns in the wrong person's hands.

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So it is with Joey Logano, who poop-between-the-eyes references aside, has shocked virtually no one this summer. The kid has been building up to what may finally happen this weekend, his Sprint Cup Series debut at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, for more than half his life.

That start is in no way guaranteed, as it wasn't when it was wiped out by rain last weekend at Richmond after Logano came out and posted a top-10 practice time in his first official session. What is a lock is that Logano's outlook will hardly change. And that, in and of itself, is akin to getting a blast of an icy breeze from mid-winter Alaska in Talladega when the former Talladega 500 was held in July. We're talking pure heaven on earth.

Logano, the skinny, 18-year-old self-proclaimed "nerdy looking person" who's spent the better part of a dozen years honing his race craft, is well beyond the point of sneaking up on anyone.

Winning races and championships virtually from the moment he started will do that, and all you had to do was witness the media storm that swirled around him at Richmond last weekend. The kid himself laughed when someone asked him about flying under the radar, acknowledging the flood of camera persons.

But the continually refreshing thing was that he wasn't ill with it. It was another cause to laugh, which puts the Middletown, Conn., phenom in lock-step with most other 18-year-olds.

He didn't apologize for the opinion some people held, that a rookie shouldn't be allowed to make his debut in the cutoff event for the Chase for the Sprint Cup, or even to race in most of the 10 Chase races, as he's planning to do.

He just smiled and said "Oh well -- what do you want me to say about that? It's just another race, and you have to be smart about what you're doing."

Let's hope he never loses that aspect of his demeanor, which would be more appropriate from a 30-something with several seasons of championship contention under his belt. He has never apologized for passing anyone, for maybe hitting them in the process or most definitely not for being there. He's earned that with every lap he's turned from the first time he turned the wheel of the family go-kart at his dad's business. (Continued)