Part-time mechanic, part-time driver: Logan Bearden continues making his dreams come true
Today at 10:21 AM
After spending years racing late models, Logan Bearden knew that in order to take the next step in his racing career, he needed to move from his Austin, Texas home to the NASCAR hub in Charlotte. He took that leap of faith at the beginning of 2023, picking up a job with AM Racing.
Bearden has raced anything and everything since turning 8 years old. He grew up around racecars, with his father being a mechanic. In 2008, he qualified on the pole and finished second in his first attempt at Daytona Kart Week. His success in the Snap-On Stars of karting division led to him representing the United States in London to compete for their karting championship.
"In the karting world, a lot of my friends went the sports car and IndyCar route," Bearden remembers of his time in karting. "Since I grew up around stock cars, I always wanted to go the stock car route. I didn‘t know when or if I would get there, but that‘s where I wanted to go."
In 2011, Bearden won Daytona Kart Week. Throughout the 2010s, he competed in pro modifieds and super late models. He returned to Daytona International Speedway in 2022 to take part in an ARCA Menards Series test with AM Racing before returning to super late models at Irwindale Speedway for the All-Star Showdown, placing third in the feature.
That led to Bearden making his NASCAR debut for AM Racing in the Craftsman Truck Series at Circuit of The Americas, his home track. He qualified 21st and finished 28th and didn‘t return to the NASCAR scene for a full year, when he finished 22nd at COTA. He made one additional start in 2023 at Indianapolis Raceway Park, finishing 21st.
In January of 2023, Bearden started to work half days for AM Racing as a front-end mechanic. Over the last two years, he‘s progressed to being a shop guy who takes care of the organization’s Ilmor engine program for its ARCA team. On Mondays, he assists the team with its teardown of the previous week‘s Xfinity Series chassis.
At the same time, Bearden wanted to speed up his racing career. Team management for AM Racing has allowed him to seek opportunities with different teams, along with running a pair of races for AM at Bristol and Kansas.
"It‘s difficult; it‘s really tricky," Bearden said of balancing an everyday job while chasing his racing dream. "Kevin Cywinski (team owner) and Wade Moore (team president) have been great to me, giving me the opportunity to be flexible enough to even do that. I work from 6:30 in the morning to 11:30 and then I head back to the apartment and am on the computer making phone calls, trying to put opportunities together."
Bearden teamed up with Snow Belt Management this year, an athlete management agency that specializes in motorsports, spearheaded by fellow driver Patrick Emerling. As a former team owner in the Xfinity Series, Emerling knows what hurdles that Bearden faces while chasing opportunities.
"[Bearden] and I both have somewhat of a similar background, short-track racing," Emerling said. "We have similar attitudes. It was something that the whole crew, working with Logan here, made sense. Even though we started [Snow Belt] for my own racing, it‘s cool to help out other drivers in a similar situation as I‘m in."
While making an 18-hour drive back to Charlotte from Austin in March, an opportunity came together for Bearden to possibly make his Xfinity Series debut the following weekend at Richmond. The pressure was on to get a deal completed with SS GreenLight Racing.
"At the beginning of this year, I didn‘t think we were going to do any racing at all," Bearden added. "I had to figure out some sponsorship stuff and do the homework with that. I was trying to race the Xfinity race at COTA because it was a hometown race, and it ended up falling through. Instead of sitting on the couch, I drove home to just be there.
"On my drive home from that, I got a call asking if I could do Richmond. I had an 18-hour drive, but I was three hours into it, so I had 15 hours to figure out how to put a deal together to race at Richmond."
The deal was finalized and Bearden raced at Richmond. Using strategy to his advantage, he even earned a stage point with the No. 14 car in Stage 2 before finishing a season-best 22nd.
Since Richmond, Bearden has made six additional starts, splitting time between SS GreenLight, AM Racing and Joey Gase Motorsports. Getting up to speed hasn‘t been a problem for him, despite visiting the majority of these race tracks for the first time.
While preparing for Bristol with AM, Bearden was able to hop on the Ford simulator to give him some comfort in knowing what that half-mile bullring would be like. For Kansas, the team spent three hours on the simulator, getting him adjusted to running against the wall.
"I just think natural ability is some of it," Ryan London, crew chief for the No. 15 car, said of Bearden‘s talent. "The other part is, he wants it so he‘s always studying or watching the races from the year before.
"He‘s got enough experience as far as he‘s been racing long enough to where he can pick it up and adapt quickly. I just think he has natural talent."
Bearden admits that having limited practice makes it feel like he‘s "drinking through a firehose" in those 15 minutes. He hopes to get more opportunities in 2025, potentially a full-time schedule. It‘s not determined if he will compete in any additional races in 2024.
One thing is for certain, though, when Bearden is competing against the No. 15 car, he wants to be scored ahead of the team despite being an AM employee.
"You see it and you‘re like, 'I work on that car, but I also want to beat it,‘" he stated.
