Call NASCAR's Joey Logano the King of Kentucky.
Logano is three for three at Kentucky Speedway, having won the last three Nationwide Series races there, all from the pole.
Now Kentucky Speedway is stepping up to the big time, hosting the first Sprint Cup race in its 11-year history on Saturday night. It will be the first Cup race at a new venue since Kansas Speedway and Chicagoland opened their doors in 2001.
And Kentucky would appear to be the perfect place for Logano to get his first Sprint Cup win of the season.
But it's no sure thing. An open testing session could level the playing field.
"I don't think my Nationwide success at Kentucky is an automatic given that it will be easier for me in the Cup car," Logano said. "The Nationwide car is different this year, and it's a lot different than the Cup cars. A lot of the guys have competed in the Nationwide races here and ... the good guys will figure it out on Thursday."
Indeed, six Sprint Cup Series regulars have won a race at Kentucky Speedway -- Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, David Gilliland, Greg Biffle and Logano -- in either the Nationwide or Camping World Truck series.
Several of the drivers have compared Kentucky to Kansas Speedway, a similarly built 1.5-mile tri-oval. Logano qualified fifth but finished 23rd in last month's STP 400 truck race at Kansas but won the last two Nationwide races there, including last year from the pole.
"I feel like Kentucky is Kansas and Chicago ... that equals Kentucky," Logano said. "The banking is a lot like Kansas and the front straightaway and the way you go into the corner reminds me of Chicago."
Logano will have a little bit of the Kansas City area riding with him on Saturday night as The Home Depot store in Blue Springs' No. 3024 will have its number on the No. 20 Toyota after the store won a weekly sales competition.
Logano, 21, has been on a bit of a roll himself, winning the pole and posting a sixth-place finish at Sonoma two weeks ago and coming in third place last week at Daytona, where he also won the Nationwide race.
He's moved into 20th in the Cup standings, which is an important threshold. A driver can't qualify for one of the two wild-card spots in the Chase for the Sprint Cup without being in the top 20. If he expects to qualify for his first Chase, Logano would need at least one and likely two wins in the remaining eight races before the post-season begins because the two wild-card spots are determined by most wins among drivers 11-20.
"Being 20th ... it's nowhere even close to where we expected to be or where we wanted to be at this point in the season," Logano said. "We've been in a hole, and I think we're doing a really good job digging ourselves out of it.
"We went through a segment like this last year; we were struggling and we came up out of it, and we finished off the year really strong with a lot of top-10 and top-five finishes. Once you start consistently running good again, those wins come. You've just got to be patient with it and not do anything stupid in the meantime. We've definitely got to keep ourselves in the top 20, and as long as we keep doing that, we'll be fine."
Logano will also defend his Nationwide title at Kentucky on Saturday night when he tries to become the first driver to win as many as four straight at a track since Kyle Busch won five straight Nationwide races at Texas during 2008-10.
It was at Kentucky where Logano burst onto the scene in 2008 when in his third career start, he became the youngest Nationwide Series winner ever at 18 years, 21 days. In 2009, Logano led just 20 laps but passed Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch late for the win. Last year, he dominated the event by leading 106 laps.
"Each win for me is definitely real special for sure," Logano said. "My first one was probably the most special there at Kentucky being my first ... that was one of those key moments in my career that was able to get me into my Sprint Cup ride that I have now. You see some guys that are able to win a race pretty quick like that, they get people thinking about you and moving you up pretty quick."
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