Logano to replace Stewart in No. 20

ATLANTA — The Legends program at Atlanta Motor Speedway now can boast three former competitors running in NASCAR's elite Sprint Cup Series.

Alpharetta, Ga., resident Joey Logano will take over the No. 20 Home Depot-sponsored Toyota at Joe Gibbs Racing next season, the Gibbs team announced on Monday.

Logano, who will replace Tony Stewart, will make his Cup debut at Richmond next month in a No. 02 car, joining Peachtree City, Ga.'s Reed Sorenson and Unadilla, Ga.'s David Ragan.

The Logano family, from Middletown, Conn., discovered the Legends program at AMS almost by accident. Joey recalled that he and his family were driving home from his uncle's house in Savannah, Ga., and decided to stop by the track. They met Ragan's father, Ken Ragan, who was running the AMS Legends program, and bought a Bandolero, a miniature racer.

They eventually moved to the South to race that car, then bought a faster Legends car.

AMS president Ed Clark said he realized Logano had exceptional talent when the youngster moved from Bandoleros to Legends and kept right on winning.

"As hard as those Legends cars are to drive on a flat quarter-mile track, they're a pretty good teaching tool," Clark said.

Clark also remembers being at a meeting in Charlotte, N.C., and getting a phone call from his staff informing him that Logano had duped track officials into letting him run a Cup car on the 1.54-mile superspeedway at age 14.

"I went silent," Clark said. "I told them he couldn't run any faster than 170 mph. But they didn't pay any attention."

Logano, 18, laughs at that story.

"Ed had me running about caution-lap speed," he said. "But after I ran a few hard corners, they let me go the rest of the day."

Logano, who ran some of his first Late Model races at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway, is quick to credit the people who helped him in those formative years, including Dewitt Paschal, Jim Gresham, Clark and Ragan.

Rick Minter writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.