Over four years have passed since the final Nascar sanctioned race was run at Rockingham, NC. However, Sunday the ARCA Re/Max Series visited the Rock, with a first time entry by Joey Logano, a driver being developed by Joe Gibbs Racing.

Logano earned the pole at a track considered by many to be one of the most difficult ones for a stock car driver to conquer on Saturday. This didn't phase the young Logano, however, as he went on to dominate the Carolina 500 on Sunday, leading 257 of 312 laps en-route to his first Arca series victory in his first start. The key to Logano's win may have been the patience that he knew is required when racing at the tricky Rockingham Speedway.

"I have to thank the Joe Gibbs crew for pitting me," said Logano. "They kept me out front. We're going to get a shot at Dover coming up, and hopefully we'll see victory lane there too. I wasn't running flat out the whole race. You've got to pace yourself. That's a really big deal here at The Rock."

Logano had few to challenge him in his dominating victory, aside from hard racing with Ken Schrader and a challenge for the lead mid-race from Michael Annett. With ten laps to go, however, Logano came into the pits for fresh tires. He came out in the fourth position, as there were only five cars that he hadn't lapped already. At one point in the race, he had all but the second place driver lapped out of the 50 car field.

When the race restarted and the cars barrelled down into turn 1, Logano was in the fourth position. When they came out of turn 4 just seconds later, he was again leading the pack. From there the 17 year old from Conneticutt would pull away by over four seconds from Ken Schrader, who finished 2nd after starting the race in the 31st position.

"I would have loved to have won but it's neat to see the fastest car win a race and that's what happened today," said Schrader. "I have to thank Johnny Benson who came out here and practiced the car for us on Friday. It was good. We just didn't have anything for [Joey] Logano. We didn't pit for tires at the very end there because we didn't have any tires, but even if we did, we probably wouldn't have pitted. We're low budget so if there is an opportunity to cut costs anywhere, we do it."

Logano will turn 18 on May 24, and will attempt to make his first Nationwide Series start at Dover on May 31 in the Helluva Good 200.