Joey Logano Makes America Know His Humble Story in Heartfelt Late Night Comedy Bit

Joey Logano’s legacy didn’t start with roaring engines or sold-out speedways. It began with a child, a quarter midget car, and an obsession that refused to burn out. Long before he ever held a NASCAR trophy, Logano had already caught the attention of racing veterans. Randy LaJoie, a two-time Xfinity Series champ, once dubbed him “the best thing since sliced bread” – a label that stuck long before most of the sport even knew his name.

Over time, Logano made good on that promise. He became the youngest Xfinity Series winner in history, won the Daytona 500 at 24, and earned three NASCAR Cup Series championships by his early 30s. But behind the numbers is something rarer: a driver who always knew what he wanted, long before the world was ready to believe it.

Logano always had one dream

That mindset came out with rare honesty during Joey Logano’s recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where country-rap artist Jelly Roll stepped in as guest host. What began as a light conversation quickly turned personal. When Jelly casually asked if racing had always been the dream, without missing a beat, Logano confirmed, “That was it! From the beginning, it was race car driver. Since I was like five, six years old.” 

Pressed on whether he ever considered another path, Logano leaned into the humor of his own single-mindedness: “There was never plan B. It had to work. If not, then it was Zamboni driver, which I did for a while too.” Logano has mentioned before how he drove the Zamboni at his family’s ice rink, where he also met his wife, who skated at the rink and worked at the concession stand. Being so adamant in one direction towards racing, that kind of commitment doesn’t just shape a career; it becomes generational.

Logano’s father, Tom Logano, played a big role in encouraging this racing spirit he had in him. Since those early years, Logano as a kid would go out with his parents to watch races, despite knowing nothing about that world. Logano described these years as “one of his best”, as that is where you absorb the sport and develop the love for it. Those childhood racing memories are so deeply ingrained in Logano that he went on to recreate one of his very heartfelt pictures from his childhood with his dad when he was six.

The original picture of Logano was taken in his quarter midget that he used to race as a kid. Logano used the very same quarter midget, still kept by his father for 30 years, to recreate the same nostalgic moment, this time he being the father leaning onto his son Hudson, who stood in the very same midget from his childhood. “My oldest son Hudson… he loves cars as well. He’s got the same bug that I caught with vehicles.” Seeing his son drive the same car he once drove was very “cool” to see, as Logano described. It was more than mere nostalgia. It was a reminder that this sport, this dream, lives on, not just in trophies or stats, but in the stories passed down from one racer to the next.

Jelly Roll and Joey Logano: two different roads, same relentless drive

The contrast between Logano and Roll made the Kimmel segment all the more compelling. Roll’s story is rooted in unpredictability – time in juvenile detention, battles with addiction, and a decade of scraping through Nashville’s underground before breaking out as a genre-bending artist. His CMT Music Award and Grammy nominations came after years of failure, course-correction, and stubborn self-belief.

On the other hand, Logano had a much different trajectory. By the time he was 18, Logano was the youngest winner in Xfinity Series history, the youngest pole winner in Cup Series history, and one of the most closely watched young talents in NASCAR. His 2009 full-time Cup debut with Joe Gibbs Racing marked the beginning of a steady climb, but it was his move to Team Penske in 2013 that turned potential into domination. There, he matured into a championship-caliber driver, locking down titles in 2018, 2022, and most recently in 2024.

Though both had very different paths, there was a common, relentless drive that helped them fight their respective battles. For all their differences – the music and the motors, the chaos and the control, Joey Logano and Jelly Roll landed exactly where they were meant to. Decades of sweat, silence, and starting over brought them to the finish line of the dreams they once clung to as kids. And for Logano, that finish line isn’t really an end, it’s a checkpoint. The same fire that lit up a five-year-old in a quarter midget still burns behind the visor today.