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.

The interesting thing will be what happens at New Hampshire this weekend now that Logano's Sprint Cup debut -- while in no way guaranteed -- is once again online after Joe Gibbs Racing, which true to team president J.D. Gibbs' words on Sunday about wanting to do everything in its power to enable Logano to make his first series start in a car in Home Depot livery, entered just such a vehicle on Tuesday morning.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway could be considered one of Logano's home tracks, since he won his first racing championships while still based in Connecticut. New Hampshire -- and New England -- fans truly latch onto one of their own in a devout manner.

Above all, don't expect him to lose his head, or the beat. A year ago, one of the funniest things ever in a post-race media briefing occurred when Logano and one of his youthful driving counterparts showed up for a post-Busch East race event. While waiting for the coordinator to show up and not realizing the microphones were live, Logano proceeded to entertain everyone pounding away on their computers in the adjacent work room with a rap-music duet, complete with mimicked turntable-scratching accompaniments.

Again, just what you'd expect out of a teenager -- and just priceless when you consider he's someone who'll be contending at this level for a good long time from now.

How can you tell that? You can do it just by listening to him. It's unlikely he'll get himself into a jam.

"I'm a competitive person, but you have to be smart about it," Logano said. "That's what I try to do every race I go into. Yeah, I want to go out there and win every race, but if I have a fifth-place car I'm going to finish fifth. I'm not going to try to get something more than I really have. That's when you get yourself in trouble."

"So I'm going to race everyone smart and I'm going to race everyone clean and that's how we are going to do it. That's the plan when we go out there -- to do the best we can with what we've got and just gain a lot of respect out there for next year."

Logano's JGR Toyotas have indeed been the great equalizers so far, but in no way does that diminish what he brings to the table. And again, the way he respects where he is without backing off an inch.

"Sometimes you're like, 'There's Jeff Gordon, there's Mark Martin' -- all the guys you looked at as a kid growing up," Logano said. "Actually to be on the same racetrack racing with them -- that's a big deal. At least it is for me.

"So I think, yeah, you think about [who you're racing against] sometimes, but at the same time you can't let it bother you. You have to race them the same way you would race anyone else and you have to be smart about it. You still have to race them."

And that may lead to the only surprise Logano has left, which is how long it'll take for his first Cup victory to come.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.