Young driver Joey Logano tugged on the corner of a brightly-decorated “Happy Race Day, Joey” banner hanging in the shop and wondered aloud whether other drivers’ moms are so involved in their operations.

“The piñatas are cool – and I like the Home Depot/Number 20 paper plates we use when it’s time for cake, but Mom is just a little too enthusiastic around here.  I tell her to be cool.  She just tries harder to embarrass me,” said the dejected young man.  “We don’t need to celebrate everyone’s half-birthday if their real birthday falls outside of the race season.”

The tension was palpable when Debbie Logano asked several of her son’s new friends if they wanted to come over and play video games with Joey in the basement.   “We just kind of shuffled our feet and said ‘No, thank you, ma’am.’  What else can you do?  It’s your boss’ mom,” one pit crew members divulged between bites of a Logano-themed orange-frosted cupcake in a Logano cupcake tin-foil wrapper.  “Then she starts asking if we are keeping up in school with Joey.  I’m 27 years old, lady.  I got my GED five years ago.”

Logano wants his mom around the shop, but he never knows what surprises she has in store for him. 

“I don’t know if the other drivers’ moms take them to Target to buy a nut cup.  Hell, I don’t even know if you need a cup to drive a race car.  I’ve never even thought about it,” said a crew chief who asked not to be named.

Dave Blaney, whose mom is completely uninterested in her son’s racing career, has become a fixture in the Logano shop.  “I think it is great that David comes around to see Joey,” Debbie told us.  “We have two big chairs for the pre-race pep rally always at the ready, just in case David makes it into the field, too.  He seems to enjoy the streamers and confetti poppers, and that boy can eat a salami and cheese sandwich with the best of them.  I make extras every morning.  David Blaney is a good boy, and he’s a good influence on my son.”

Joey Logano is devoted to learning everything his mom has to teach him about the world of racing, and the young man seldom gets a day off.  Please and tahnk you practice is closely followed by pointers on smiling for pictures, chewing with your mouth closed, and a private session scheduled with Logano’s father for “birds and bees” time.

Is there anything Logano would change about her mother’s approach?  “Well, I’d ask her to back off in the lady departemnt a bit, and to stop referring to the NASCAR year-end awards ceremony as prom.””