Monday afternoon, Joe Gibbs Racing officially named 18-year-old standout Joey Logano the driver of the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota for 2009. Taking over the ride Tony Stewart has piloted for ten years, Logano definitely feels the pressure on his shoulders, but welcomes it with open arms.

"I'm all about the pressure," Logano smiled and told the gathered media. "I'm cool with pressure. Moving up to this car now, it's more pressure, but I can handle it. When Tony left and they brought my name up, it was really exciting for me, especially for an 18-year-old kid it's even cool to have my name brought up. For it all to happen it's really exciting."

In what is a multi-year deal, Logano will jump behind the wheel of the No. 20 with crew chief Greg Zipadelli calling the shots. Current primary sponsor the Home Depot has agreed to remain on board with JGR through this new phase and looks forward to working with Logano.

"This is an exciting day for the Home Depot," Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Frank Bifulco explained during Monday's announcement. "We're extremely delighted to be maintaining our association with what we think is one of the most professionally run organizations in racing, Joe Gibbs Racing. Now we feel we'll be associated with a driver that's joining the team that will help usher in the next era of winning for Joe Gibbs Racing and the Home Depot, and that's Joey Logano."

One of the hottest drivers to hit the NASCAR scene since Jeff Gordon, the 18-year-old kid from Connecticut will now test his skills against the best in the world. Making his way through the ranks of quarter-midget and legends cars, Logano began turning heads at a young age. At only 16 years-old, veteran driver Mark Martin declared Logano was ready to go Cup racing already.

Both team owner Joe Gibbs and president J.D. Gibbs pointed out their decision to name Logano the driver of the No. 20 leaned very heavily on the opinion of crew chief Greg Zipadelli. One of the best in the business, Zipadelli has worked with Tony Stewart for ten years, but is excited to start over with the youngster Logano.

No stranger to the Cup cars, Logano has been under contract with JGR for three years as a developmental driver. Always eager to get behind the wheel, Logano has served as a test driver for the team for much of that time. For Zipadelli, it was clear Logano was the real deal during a test at Kansas three years ago. What impressed the veteran crew chief most about the young driver was the consistency he showed lap after lap.

"We took him in the No. 20 car and put an ARCA spoiler on the car and took him up there to an ARCA test," Zipadelli explained of that Kansas test. "We put him under some pressure and he did a good job. He went out and ran a lot of days, a lot of laps and he's done that time and time again."

While there are no plans to replace Stewart with Logano before the season is out - even if Tony misses the Chase - there are plans to get him some Cup Series experience before the year is out.

Logano's first career Cup Series event will come in two weeks at Richmond. Driving the No. 02 Home Depot Camry, Logano will have Wally Brown on top of the pit box making the calls. JGR also plans on putting him behind the wheel at Atlanta in November and working with another team - the No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing Camry - to run even more races before the end of the year.