Tuesday, September 2, 2008

'Sliced Bread' Logano Looking for Dough and Fame

ESPN's E-60 featured an interview with Joey Logano--you know, the kid dubbed the 'best thing since sliced bread'--earlier this evening. Logano is already living the Richie Rich lifestyle and his parents falsified his age (listing him as 12 when he was 10) so he could compete in the Donnie Allison Pro Legends series 8 years ago--or was that 6 years?...Some of us will have to be convinced of the superior talent of this youngster. After all, when you compete with top-notch equipment, like Jeff Gordon did when he was a child beating up on the other poorer kids whose dads worked to put their cars together, it is hard to get a genuine feel on talent. Same for Matt Martin, who is no longer racing--his father Mark Martin made sure the kid had Jack Roush engines when he competed against the other 12 and 13 year olds. One wonders how these kids would have done in equally prepared equipment. Motorsports allows the more affluent parents to buy better equipment to give their little darlings an advantage. So, the question certainly remains--how good is Logano? We've seen many young drivers brought up too early, too highly touted, and gone after a year or so. It will be interesting to see how Logano fares when he is in the Cup Series. I'm not quite ready to put him on a pedestal with former Cup champions.

Joey Logano also sounds quite immature when he is interviewed. His main interest is, apparently, becoming a 'famous' driver. Well, he has that already.... The question remains as to whether Sliced Bread will be a fresh face and talent -- or just become toast. ;)