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Only once this season did Joey Logano's surroundings mesmerize him. Of course, that was back when he was 18 years old.

Now 19, an older and wiser Logano looks back and laughs about his reaction walking along pit road before his first Daytona 500 in February.

"Holy cow," the lanky driver recalls thinking as he strode through the crowd. "Oh, my God. This is really cool."

The sights are not as grandiose to the rookie as he races at many tracks for a second time this season. He's focused on gaining experience and improving his performance.

Thrust into a NASCAR Sprint Cup ride a year ahead of schedule because of Tony Stewart's departure from Joe Gibbs Racing, Logano has faced the intensity of unrealistic expectations while having limited time in the car at Cup tracks because of the sport's testing ban.

Those factors have made this a challenging season.

"I'm trying to figure out what I want, where I'm going and how I need to drive this thing," says Logano, who is coming off a fifth-place finish last weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "These things take such a different driving style. At different race tracks it takes even more a different racing style. (Veteran drivers) pretty much know what they want. They're working on making their race car better.

"So, we're ... kind of behind the eight-ball before we start."

A driver whose NASCAR debut was awaited breathlessly and who then won his first Nationwide race in his third series start is in line for a respectable season. He enters Sunday's race at Martinsville Speedway 20th in the points, ahead of Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. — drivers who were in last year's title Chase.

Logano's season also includes a victory at New Hampshire. He knows luck played a role in that rain-shortened race. He crashed less than 100 laps before the finish, but a key call by crew chief Greg Zipadelli kept Logano on the track as others made their pit stops. When rain came, he became the series' youngest winner, matching a distinction he also holds in the Nationwide series.

With youth comes inexperience. Zipadelli, a two-time champion crew chief with Stewart, has had to play a different role this season. He's become almost a father figure in helping guide Logano with the car.

"We don't have two or three years for him to ride around and figure it out on his own because of the situation we were put in," Zipadelli says, noting Stewart's departure to run for his own team this season. "We're trying to accelerate his learning curve."

There are times, though, when Zipadelli can't help his young pupil.

"Sometimes you just have to let things play out, whether you know it, you see it, you feel it because you don't learn unless sometimes you experience failure, hard times. That teaches you, hopefully. You learn from things you do in your past."

In a sense, it's like parenthood. You can tell the child the stove is hot, but even with all the warnings, the message becomes clearer when they touch it and feel the heat instead of being told about it.

Logano, who has five wins in 20 starts in the Nationwide series this season, understands he's going through a similar situation with understanding the car in the Cup series.

"Until you're really out there around cars ... or go through a whole race and know where you're getting beat, you don't know that," he says. "It takes time, but I think we've done a good job of getting to this point so far."

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com