By Justin Leger NBC Sports Boston Jul 30, 2020
NASCAR heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend, and no driver is looking forward to Sunday’s race than former Cup Series champion Joey Logano.
Logano, a two-time winner at Loudon and a native of Middletown, Conn., is looking forward to competing at “The Magic Mile” in front of thousands of fans who will be in attendance. He caught up with NBC Sports Boston’s Danielle Trotta about his return to his “home track.”
“I don’t think [there’s anything better than winning at New Hampshire],” Logano said. “I always put winning at Loudon right up there with winning the Daytona 500. Just because it’s home, it’s a very challenging race track, but the celebration of winning at your home track — and typically you have a lot of your friends and family there — that’s what makes it special.- ADVERTISEMENT –
“Loudon’s always been special because I started my first Cup race there, I watched my first Cup race there back in ’95. So it’s just always kind of been a special place for myself.”
Logano also talked about what it’s been like to race during the coronavirus pandemic, and how different it has been to race with a smaller crowd or in some cases, no crowd at all.
“You may think you strap in a race car and you don’t hear anybody because it’s so loud and you’re by yourself inside that thing. But beforehand is where as a race car driver you always kind of fed off that energy. Whether it’s driver intros just before the race when they’re singing the national anthem, whatever it may be. Fans are cheering, booing, whatever. They’re just making noise, there’s people there and there’s a lot of energy because of that. We’re so used to that as athletes. We’re so used to people being there and that’s what we use to pump ourselves up. Not just the drivers, but also the pit crews.”
The Team Penske star can expect more cheers than boos when he returns home on Sunday. Logano’s No. 22 Ford Mustang GT will start in the ninth position as he looks for his third career win at NHMS.
Sunday’s race is set to begin at 3 p.m. on NBC Sports.