Joey Logano will hit another milestone this weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, becoming the 34th driver in NASCAR history to reach 600 Cup Series starts.

It was nearly all for naught.

Prior to hitting a national series track, Randy LaJoie coined Logano the “greatest thing since sliced bread” … quite a moniker to live up to. Immediate success in the Xfinity Series – winning in his third career start – at a ripe age of 18, opened the eyes of many, including his then-team owner Joe Gibbs. When Tony Stewart, then a two-time Cup champion, departed Joe Gibbs Racing to co-create Stewart-Haas Racing, the team tabbed Logano as the new driver of the No. 20 Toyota, slotted into NASCAR’s highest level at just 19 years old.

“I didn’t feel the pressure that much at the time, I think, because I was young,” Logano told NASCAR.com ahead of career start No. 600. “I didn’t have any responsibilities either; I was a kid. I didn’t have to support my family. I had a ridiculous amount of confidence for no reason at all. When I first started out, I drank all my Kool-Aid. All of the hype that was around me before I came in, I made the mistake of believing that I was going to be the man.”

Logano recalled having commercials featuring him that aired during Cup Series races even before he strapped into an Xfinity car. It was a big deal that he was getting his shot, and he believed every bit of it. In retrospect, he wished he hadn’t had so much attention, but “when you’re 18, you don’t know any better.”

Before transitioning to Cup, Logano made a trio of premier series starts in 2008, splitting time between JGR and Hall of Fame Racing. He unloaded off the hauler with immediate speed for his debut at Richmond Raceway, but Mother Nature washed away his chances of qualifying for the show. His much-anticipated debut was put on hold for another week, coming at his home race track in New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

In those three 2008 starts, Logano had a best finish of 32nd, finishing multiple laps down in each of them. That was the proverbial wake-up call.

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“I remember that was the humble pie,” Logano stated. “We went to Richmond to practice and were third on the board. We were fast, and I’m like, ‘sheesh, I can do this. I’m going to win immediately in the Cup Series too, look at this.’ Then, we went to Loudon and I finished three laps down, and it was a miserable experience.

“I remember seeing the cars that I used to make fun of because they were the slowest cars on the race track all the time, and they were laying black marks off the corner. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got a lot to learn here.’ At that point, I got pretty nervous that this might not go the way I was hoping it was going to go.”

Logano’s first full-time foray at the Cup level was a negligible experience. Mother Nature was on his side in his return visit to New Hampshire, however, helping him score the upset victory as the No. 20 team’s crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, left him out with a storm emerging and eventually ending the race under caution with him in the lead. Logano was the Sunoco Rookie of the Year, tallying three top-five and seven top-10 finishes with a 20th-place finish in the championship standings. The next three seasons saw incremental improvements — including one more win in 2012 — but some dips as well, and Gibbs elected to move on from him at the end of that year.

Getting thrown to the wolves at an early age toughened Logano up. He acknowledges that the humiliation of losing his ride to Cup champion Matt Kenseth prompted him to change course. Otherwise, he thought, his career would be over before it fully began, despite winning frequently in the Xfinity Series and routinely holding off some Cup drivers.

“I think that’s what saved my career on one end of it because I could win on Saturday and it confused the hell out of everybody, and me too, on why I can win on Saturday quite a few times,” Logano noted. “We had a season (2012) where I won nearly half of the races that I was in, but I couldn’t run top 15 in a Cup car.

“Looking back at it, everything has to be put in the right places, and I wasn’t a smart enough racer back then as to how to put the right people in the right place or how to handle certain situations. I didn’t know what was off. I knew something was off because we sucked.”

Brad Keselowski became Logano’s savior. During his 2012 championship-winning season, Keselowski reached out to Roger Penske to give his thoughts on who should take over the troubled No. 22 ride. In previous years, driver Kurt Busch and team management didn’t see eye-to-eye, leading to AJ Allmendinger taking over the car in 2012. Midway through the season, Allmendinger failed a random drug test and NASCAR indefinitely suspended him. Sam Hornish Jr. filled in the rest of the season, though Penske wanted to build its future with Logano.

Penske legend and NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace disagreed with the signing. But Logano was out to prove to his naysayers that he wasn’t a bust.

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The uptick in performance was immediate.

Logano won from the pole at Michigan International Speedway in 2013 before posting monster numbers through 2014 and 2015, making the inaugural Championship 4 and accumulating 11 wins over the two seasons. The once prodigy proved his legitimacy.

“When I got here to Penske, it was a fresh start,” Logano added. “They needed a fresh start. They needed somebody that was just going to not get in any trouble. Todd [Gordon, crew chief] was a great match for me at the time. Todd acted as a father figure in a lot of ways and helped guide me along, and that’s what helped put us in a good position.

“2014 is probably when we started to reach that point. 2015 solidified it. We’ve been a threat to win the championship from then on, in different ways, but I would say we have our own way of doing it and it is very different from everybody. I like that. I pride myself on being different from other people.”

Fast forward a decade, and Logano is part of a small list of 10 drivers to win three Cup Series championships. The first title came in 2018, when he dubbed it “the big three and me” as he upset Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. He entered rarified air in 2022, becoming a multi-time champion. The No. 22 team followed that up last year, winning its third title in seven seasons to cement his legend status.

Potential fulfilled — though Logano still isn’t satisfied, feeling like he should have even more checkered flags.

“To me, you can never carve the future and know what your own future is going to look like,” Logano stated. “Did I expect when I was 18 years old when I first started to win three championships? Absolutely, probably win more than that. Did I expect to win a championship after 2010 or 2011? No, not at all.

“It’s kind of like God gives you things that you don’t know you need, but you need them in retrospect. In the trenches, you don’t realize it. I know this doesn’t relate to everybody because it’s like, ‘OK, you’re driving Cup cars, big deal, it’s not that bad.’ And I get that, but at the same time – if you don’t minimize what you’re actually doing and think about that – I needed every lesson that came my way, and there are lessons that are still coming.”

Those tutorials began when Logano was a teenager. He still applies lessons learned some 17 years later, with nearly half of his life being in the national spotlight.

“The two things (in NASCAR) that are the most amount of pressure that you can possibly put on yourself is trying to race for a championship or trying to keep your job,” Logano noted. “The road map to the two are the same, in a way, because it’s either your career is going to be over, or you have the opportunity to reach the ultimate goal. Both are massive amounts of pressure and I’ve been in that position so many times now that I know how to do that. I think back then helped me.”

Admittedly, Logano doesn’t think much about his legacy. He pays more attention to the health of the sport and how it grows during his stint. However, with his 600th start, he’s beginning to realize the significance of such an achievement.

“Considering I wasn’t going to make it to 150, 600 feels pretty good,” Logano said. “You don’t remember most of them. I’ve probably remembered 10% of the races that I’ve run, which is funny because I think about it now, and you have bad races and you get pissed off. But then, I think about it and there have been a lot of races where I’ve been pissed off and I don’t remember them eventually, so it’s going to be OK.”

Logano wants to become NASCAR’s next “Iron Man.” During Jeff Gordon’s retirement sendoff in 2015, the four-time Cup champion passed Ricky Rudd for the most consecutive starts in Cup history (797). To reach that goal, Logano must compete in every race for the next five-and-a-half seasons.

And even getting to 906 total starts, which Rudd ranks second on the all-time list, isn’t out of the question. That said, Richard Petty’s mammoth record of 1,184 starts seems safe for the time being.

MORE: Drivers with most all-time Cup Series starts

“I’ve thought about it and I think I can do it,” Logano added of getting to 798 straight starts. “I need to start by staying healthy and not missing a race. I’m the only one that can do it right now. Why not go for it?”

Logano is determined to win his fourth championship this season, already locked into the playoffs via a victory at Texas Motor Speedway. Logano is two wins away from tying Wallace as the winningest driver in the Cup Series for Penske. He’s hoping to join Petty as the only driver to win their 600th start (Richmond Raceway, 1973).

“I always say that I’m going to race until I’m not competitive, especially now that the schedule is a lot easier than it used to be. If you can cut out a lot of other things in your life and can just race, it’s not that bad. It’s taxing, but my body feels OK. And we can compete for wins and I’m not holding back my team; I would do it. As soon as I start holding people back, I’m out.”