Will double-dippers have an advantage at Kentucky?

Joey Logano has won three-straight poles and Nationwide Series races at Kentucky. Ever since he busted on the NASCAR scene in 2008, the soon-to-be 21 year old from Middletown, Conn., has owned Kentucky Speedway’s Nationwide Series race.

Logano runs a practice lap at Kentucky in June of 2010

That Nationwide Series race, which was a “standalone” race that coincided with the Sprint Cup Series race at Michigan in June, has moved to a date about one month after when it used to be run in the Bluegrass State.

But will that change who wins?

My money will probably still be Joey Logano to win the Nationwide Series race, although Mark Martin and Kyle Busch could be contenders, and you can never count out Carl Edwards either. All four of those drivers, of course, aren’t Nationwide regulars. In theory they’ll have an edge going into the Sprint Cup race on Saturday night, right?

As Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast, my friend.”

A.J. Allmendinger agrees.

“They’ll have a little bit of an advantage at the start of the weekend,” he said. “They’ll know what the track is like, initially going out there, but when it comes to the end, I think these cars are enough different from a truck or from a Nationwide car that when it comes to race time it won’t matter that much.”

“It won’t be that much of an advantage.”

Logano and Martin are scheduled to participate in the Goodyear tire test on June 1st at the track, along with five other drivers. (For more on the tire test, see my post from a few weeks ago: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/04/goodyear-announces-list-of-drivers-for.html)

Martin has never run a race at Kentucky, but Logano, Busch, Edwards and even Brad Keselowski all turned laps last year in the Nationwide race at Kentucky. And even though Allmendinger thinks they won’t have that much of an advantage come raceday, he does think that knowing how the track will react to the shade of the night will be an advantage.

“They might know how the track, when it’s starting at night, how the track may go to a certain direction, whether it’s looser or tighter,” he said. “But honestly, if one of those guys wins, it’s not because they’ve been racing in the Nationwide car here, it’s because they’re fast.”

Tough to disagree with that.

Even though it’s been three years since Allmendinger has turned a lap at the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway, he knows that with enough allotted testing time before the Quaker State 400, most everyone will be even.

“It’s been three years and there’s still a lot of guys like Carl and Kyle, Joey, those guys that run the Nationwide race that have a lot more experience on the race track than I do,” he said.

“As racecar drivers our job is to come out and adapt,” he continued. “And I know NASCAR is going to give us a lot of time on the racetrack anyways, so coming here and not being here for a couple of years isn’t going to matter.”