"He never proved me wrong" - Mark Martin on spotting 10-year-old Joey Logano as future NASCAR Champion

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion Joey Logano caught the eye of NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin when he was just 10 years old. Mark, is arguably the best driver to compete in the NASCAR Cup Series without any title to his name.

Recently in the Rubbin is Racing podcast, Martin talked about the potential he saw in 10-year-old Logano when he competed with the adults in the Pro-race in Atlanta.

The former NASCAR driver said:

"I saw Joey race the first time uh in Atlanta when he was 10 years old he had already graduated to racing with the adults in a legend car and anyone who's ever driven a legend car will probably tell you it's the hardest car they've ever tried to race in because they handle pretty poorly and he would outran all the grown-ups in the pro division not the semi-pro division" (59:44)

Martin described how difficult it was for an adult to drive a US legend car back then, whereas Logano flourished among the grown-ups by winning the race.

Check out Mark Martin's comments below:

Martin added:

"I knew that night and said that night he would be a NASCAR champion. It was unbelievable. It was just a little bitty kid and um, you know he never proved me wrong. He was incredible Talent. Um and you know two time Champion now."

As we know, the bright future Mark saw for Logano came true and Team Penske #22 is looking to put more championships under his name.

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"He helped me in my career" - Joey Logano credits Mark Martin for shaping his career

The 2018 and 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Joey Logano credited the NASCAR legend Mark Martin for shaping his career in motorsports at a young age.

According to the #22 driver, Martin helped him throughout his career's early stages. Logano admitted this in an episode of NASCAR's Untold Stories, saying:

“I wouldn’t be sitting here today if it wasn’t for Mark Martin.” (0:22)

The 2-time NASCAR Cup Series Championship winner added:

"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.”

This shaped a great deal in Team Penske's driver Logano later in his career when he went on to win not one but two NASCAR Cup Series Championships.