Logano affirms commitment to Joe Gibbs Racing

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Jason Smith
Getty Images for NASCAR

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CONCORD, N.C. – Now that he’s turned 18, Joey Logano is literally in charge of his future.

Contracts signed by minors typically are difficult to enforce, so Logano and Joe Gibbs Racing likely will enter into an agreement soon to secure Logano’s future, JGR President J.D. Gibbs said Saturday.

Logano celebrated his birthday Saturday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and his team looks forward to his Nationwide Series debut next week at Dover International Speedway.

“Right now, the contract is with his parents, and what you have to do now is go back and we’ll have to re-do a contract with him,” Gibbs said. “We’re definitely going to do that.

“It’s going to be a long-term deal. Right now, he has three or four years left on it.”

When asked about the fact that he is 18 and technically could be free to sign with any team, Logano just laughed.

“It definitely couldn’t work out any better,” Logano said about JGR. “My dad and my mom have put loyalty into me growing up. That wouldn’t be the right thing to do now, would it?

“It definitely hasn’t crossed my mind. Why would I want to go anywhere else?”

Logano’s father, Tom, signed a guarantee with JGR in 2005 that if Joey left the team when he turned 18, Tom would repay JGR for the money invested in his son.

“We couldn’t have made a better decision,” Tom Logano said. “Joey is legal and that’s only right [to re-do the contract]. We’ll probably
do it next week. I’m sure J.D. will make a phone call and Joey will be there and sign off on it. We don’t regret anything we did.”

Gibbs understands that there can be some risk signing a driver who is under 18 but then could leave the team that helped groom him.

“Legally, you can do some of that [breaking of deals], but … Tom is locked into it,” Gibbs said. “If he wants to leave Tom hanging, I guess he could do that. But I don’t think he’s going to do that anytime soon.”

Tom Logano said he offered that guarantee to teams when negotiating deals for Joey three years ago.

“I was fortunate that I am in a position to be able to do that,” Tom Logano said. “There are a lot of kids coming up who probably can’t do it. It definitely is a stumbling block for teams to sign younger kids.”

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1 response to "Logano affirms commitment to Joe Gibbs Racing".

1

starr webb said:
May 25, 2008 at 6:57 AM
Joey sounds as if he has his act together. He's definitly with a great team and would be crazy not to pursue it further with JGR. I wish him luck and can't wait to see him start at Dover next week.
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