Gibbs dials down pressure for wunderkind Logano (cont'd)

Of course, there were mitigating factors. Two of the cars Logano drove in those events were owned by Hall of Fame Racing, whose somewhat unwieldy technical alliance with the Gibbs organization was nearing an end. Attempts to qualify at two other tracks were washed out. No one who knows Logano sees that brief, uneven chapter as an accurate barometer for which he's capable.

"I know Joey. I feel like Joey is ready," said his predecessor, Stewart, who left the Gibbs organization after a decade to form his own team. "He's a very smart kid and a very good race car driver for his age. I don't think he's going to have any trouble getting used to this series, and he's got a team and definitely a crew chief that's got a lot of experience. He's got all the tools in place that he needs to be good."

Short Shootout

"It sucks," Joey Logano said of the Lap 4 wreck that ended his first Budweiser Shootout. "It's too early. I was just trying to get a feel for it before we went up there and mixed it up with everyone."

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So now it's on to Daytona, a place where Jeff Gordon remembers "freaking out" before his first start in the Great American Race as a 21-year-old in 1993. At Gibbs, everybody knows Logano can drive. The focus is on things like communication with Zipadelli, on being ready to handle specific situations, on bring prepared for the fishbowl environment, on proving to more veteran drivers that his relative inexperience isn't a liability on a fast, sometimes perilous restrictor-plate track. The worst-case scenario is that he does something to lose the confidence of those around him, and has difficulty finding drafting partners on Sunday. Logano didn't get much practice Saturday in the Budweiser Shootout, his first race at Daytona, when he was caught up in someone else's accident and knocked out after four laps.

"Until you're there, until you have to deal with the competition, deal with the stress, the pressures this sport has today, from the media's and NASCAR's requirements to sponsors pulling on you, you can't simulate that," Zipadelli said. "You can't prepare anybody for it. I tried to explain it to him, what he's about to do is what I did seven years ago and have our first child. All your friends are saying, 'Oh, this great, kids are easy, wait until they tell you they love you the first time, and they're so rewarding, and all this.' It doesn't matter what anybody tells you. Until it's yours, until you have to deal with it, and you go through that point in time, you don't know."

But Zippy has a feeling. The crew chief with two championship rings says he hasn't come to Daytona to finish 25th. "We feel like we have cars [that are] good enough," he said. "We have a driver who's young, but if we put him in the right situation, there's no reason we can't go down there and have a good finish or put ourselves in position to win a race."

Wait -- aren't those expectations? Maybe not. Even Logano admits, there's nothing wrong with the equipment. How soon the No. 20 wins again depends on how quickly he progresses, although no one is setting a timetable. "You think about it, I am jumping into a great car," he said. "I do have everything I need to win a championship, expect me not having experience. You guys [in the media] know that, you've heard that a million times. That's obviously what it is. Everyone realizes it. I'm going to do the best that I can and go from there."

That's all Zipadelli can ask for. "I think if we get to Daytona and we progress from the time we roll in until the time we leave, that's a successful weekend, no matter where we finish," he said. "Obviously, we need to finish good, we need some points, we need to stay inside the top 35. And then we go to California, and we go to Vegas, and if we can continue to do that, then that will be success."