Most times, beyond the usual people in the picture, there are people who contribute to your achievements in a manner fans may not know. Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion attributes his success not solely to himself, but also to Cup legend Mark Martin. According to Logano, Martin discovered his talent at a young age and supported him throughout his early career.
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In a recent NASCAR video documenting untold NASCAR stories, Logano revealed that he had the opportunity to drive against Martin way before his Cup career began. Despite struggling to keep Martin behind him, Logano managed to pass the ‘Mark Martin test’.
Joey Logano shares an untold Mark Martin story
As the video progressed, Logano mentioned, “We tried to put a deal together with Roush and we just couldn’t make it work. But in the meantime, while we’re trying to make it work, they gave us one of their older Cup cars that was retired. So here just go play with it. We’d go to local short tracks… Sometimes they’d go test at Lakeland, went down there with them. We ran two days testing.”
He added Mark Martin showed up with his full Cup team at one of the tracks and Logano, who was 14 at the time, was been present there. Logano was unable to match Martin’s speed and became frustrated. Despite it being a test, the future Team Penske driver was determined to keep Martin behind him and tried his best to do so.
“I’m just trying to drive and he came and just punted me out of the way… Later on, we figured out we had a different set of tires than what they had like tire codes were different. I felt way better about it. But for two days, I didn’t say anything. And I thought I sucked…”
Martin knew Logano would be a Cup Series champion early on
In the video, Martin stated, “I saw Joey race Legends cars, which are the hardest things in the world to drive I think. At 10 years old racing in the Pro Division. I’m talking about the Pro Division. I’m talking about the grown-ups. You know, and whipping them.”
“When I saw him whipping them, and I was like, so this little kid gets out of the car, and I’m like, he’s gonna be NASCAR champion. He’s gonna be a Cup champion. And I knew it from the time he was 10 years old.”
Martin did have a knack for recognizing talent. Later on in life, Logano would go on not only to win a single championship but two of them in the Cup Series.
