Logano disappointed with Cup debut

The 18-year-old, who is set to replace Tony Stewart at Joe Gibbs Racing next season, had a tough debut at NASCAR's top level. Even though he wasn't involved in any incidents, he had to fight the handling of his car all afternoon.

He also had to serve a drivethrough penalty early on after leaving his pit stall while the jack had not been removed from below his car following his first stop. He dragged it through pit road and lost some of the positions he had gained in the first 35 laps.

Logano drove the No. 96 car for Hall of Fame Racing this weekend after weather conditions didn't allow him to qualify the No. 02 JGR car at Richmond last week. He had the same car at Loudon on Sunday though, but he struggled to match the pace he had showed in practice a week ago throughout this weekend.

"Not what I wanted -- that's for sure," said Logano after finishing three laps down. "It was a tough one. We tried hard, but it just wasn't there the whole time. It seemed like the end of the race we were getting it close from where we started the race to where we finished the race.

"If we could have worked on it from there then it would have been a lot better. We started so back in the hole trying to get this car good and we just got close to it too late."

The JGR racer couldn't race further ahead than the top-30 all day, but still said he learned a lot about the give-and-take nature of racing in NASCAR's premier series, even if he found out the racing is more aggressive than he first thought.

"Just a lot of give and take out there," Logano said. "Again, there's a lot of take - believe me. You see what these guys are doing and we'll see what we can do for the car for the next time we are here.

"It was fun - I enjoyed it. By lap 200 I wanted it to end because we weren't running worth a dang. We are going to take what we learned and go at it."

Logano will compete again in two weeks at Kansas, as Ken Schrader is scheduled to drive the No. 96 car at Dover next week.