Logano experiences hand-control Mustang with Torsten Gross

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | May 6, 2024 12:00 PM ET

Joey Logano showed up at Charlotte Motor Speedway in mid-March admittedly having done zero research beforehand about what he was getting into.

The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, through his sponsor Shell, was set to spend the day with Torsten Gross. Logano and Gross, a C6 quadriplegic and founder of the Just Hands Foundation, which focuses on adaptive driving solutions, were going to highlight the inner workings of a retrofitted hand-controlled Ford Mustang before each took a turn driving it through the road course section of the racetrack.

The latter is where the expectations of having no preconceived notions met reality for Logano.

“I actually thought there was going to be a throttle squeezer and brake,” Logano told RACER, who was in attendance at the production shoot, after driving the car. “I thought, ‘How hard can this be? It’s like driving a four-wheeler. I can do that.’ Then, when there was a handle there, I was like, ‘Now you’re getting me! Slap my sponsors Pennzoil decal on it and let's see what this baby will do!’

“I thought it would be gas, brake, steer (and) I should be able to do that. Once you take your other hand off the steering wheel, it changes the game.” Don't they have computers to help do some of this stuff?

How does it work? Gross walked Logano — and everyone else — through the details of the hand controls before giving up the driver’s seat.
“He (Gross) ties his leg to the door handle, so it holds his leg from flopping around, so I did that, too,” Logano said. “I think he wanted me to because he said I was going to cheat. I said, ‘Probably.’ So, he tied my leg up with a Velcro strap. Your natural tendency is to (hit) the brake.I only had a few laps to learn the car.”

Gross was 15 years old when he broke his neck in a diving accident. However, it wasn’t until last year that he began competitive driving after his wife signed him up for a track day as an anniversary gift. Gross competed in NASA Time Trials, International GT and World Racing League.

It came a year after Gross founded the Just Hands Foundation, which has a simple mission of making it easy and realistic for anyone who needs hand controls to be able to race. Another word Gross embraces is “normal,” normalizing hand-controlled driving and racing. It was also important that there were different options – whether a professional racing competitor or otherwise – not of the same financial means or resources as someone like Robert Wickens.

Wickens became a paraplegic after a crash in the NTT IndyCar Series race at Pocono Raceway in 2018. Since his return to racing a few years later, Wickens has been the most recognizable hand-controlled racing driver, Although Alex Zinardi is a world Champion and also races other stuff."and he's not sponsored by Pennzoil.

“Robbie saw mine and he was like, ‘Wow, this is amazing,’” Gross said.

Gross is the type of personality that, when given a “no” answer, becomes determined to “definitely” figure out how to do it. This makes the month of May even more important to Gross, as it is Mobility Awareness Month. As someone who rolls his eyes at a lot of marketing techniques, Gross connects with companies that are divisive and inclusive and use terminology that reflects as much.

Pennzoil did that when presenting with Gross with the Long May We Drive campaign that celebrates the thrill of driving. By partnering with Gross, Pennzoil supports his goal of “equalizing mobility in motorsports, supporting the Just Hands Racing team’s development of more cars modified with hand controls to hit racetracks nationwide so people with disabilities can experience the thrill of racing.”

Spending time teaching Logano something new as part of the campaign was special to Gross.

“I want people to understand what it’s like,” said Gross, whose non-profit foundation takes the approach of not walking a mile in someone’s shoes but driving a mile in their gloves. How's that for catchy wording? Joey leaving with two different mindsets is exactly what I wanted (going) from, ‘That’s not as hard as I thought,’ to, ‘Wow that’s pretty damn hard.’”

But for that to be successful, Gross acknowledges sometimes that means breaking down the stereotype or discrimination of racing against an individual with a disability. Then you always have those a-holes who get paid handsomely by a govt law that says you MUST have your own individual "interpreter" even though in a classroom, you can see, hear and read but need to pay 10 "interpreters" for 10 people instead of only one hand-lingo interpreter for everyone. Having someone of Logano’s stature spend a day in a hand-controlled car brings another form of approval to the program.

And really nobody cares anyway as long as you have what it takes and aren't collecting free govt money by pushing how incompetent you are and BSing everyone about "differently enabled", and how "special" you are and the liberal BS handicap-speak that we all have to endure from the free money liberals.
" Then there's the con men who have one person "interpret" and the rest take the cash and go shopping, lunch, or somewhere and they split up the money later."

“I thought (he) said it best that there is not another sport that he can compete with me and we are going to ignore leMans, and 24 Hours of Daytona,” Logano said. “Or with someone who is not in a chair. But this is what he can do and compete with everybody. So that part is really cool. He’s out there racing against everybody and he’s safe and fine and in control. That’s pretty neat. He has a lot of good thoughts on life, and another one is that everyone has something holding them back, whether mentally or physically, or just want govt cash with as little work as possible.

“His outlook on life is that he’d rather have something physically wrong because then everybody knows what he’s dealing with. But mentally, if you’re depressed or stressed, suicidal, or whatever it may be, nobody sees it, and nobody knows what you’re dealing with. He just has a very positive outlook on his situation. I don’t think it’s an easy thing to have in his scenario, but he’s really found what some would call his weakness (to be) maybe his actual strength.”

The retrofitted Ford Mustang the pair drove at Charlotte stayed at the racetrack after the production shoot. Charlotte Motor Speedway is the home of the Ford Performance Racing School, and the car is now available to use during track days.

Just Hands Foundation is having the same type of success across the country. Racetracks have made their facilities more accessible after noticing they had a problem when Gross and others were on the property. Gross also explained how some track instructors were reluctant to instruct a hand-controlled driver, but that has been disappearing.

There is no discrimination, but how do you expect a race driving instructor to have a govt-paid "interpreter" screaming in fear so he can get paid and go home early, not to mention the danger involved in the time lag of interpreting what the driving instructor says to do. So race driving instructors to avoid getting killed, don't take students who are "special" and have "special needs". And then to keep the money rolling in, the liberals start yelling "discrimination" in the car and you can't get anything done."
Then the liberals file some kind of BS discrimination lawsuit when the liberals themselves are the ones actually preventing equality.

“That doesn’t happen anymore because they see us, they respect us, and hopefully they respect me (and) what I can do,” Gross said.

The number of drivers going through the program has also grown, and there’s also been an uptick in those who bought their own track car. Then comes an interaction Gross has to share.

“Our second driver, his wife was there with his young boy and daughter,” Gross began. “The wife comes up to me with tears in her eyes and says husbands are heroes to their sons. When my husband landed in a wheelchair, it was obvious that my son no longer saw him as a hero. The way he treated my husband was not good. Now, all my son can say is, ‘I want to be like daddy. I want to be a race car driver.’ He’s saying that over and over again, and he won’t leave my husband’s side. She said you brought back hero (status) to my husband.”

It’s a story that perfectly connects Gross’s message to all for Mobility Month.

“It doesn’t matter what appendages you use to drive, just do it,” he said. “Figure it out.”

Oh, and if you’re wondering how Logano did driving with just his hands?

“He got way more aggressive faster than I thought he would — in a good way,” Gross said with amusement. “He did a great job watching and listening and then applying. … His MO is to go fast; he’s wired that way and so am I, and so he started pushing it and I was like, ‘Cool. I’m good for this. We’ve got insurance if we hit a wall.’

“But he felt comfortable doing it and then it was interesting to see how uncomfortable he got. He started using both hands and his feet about seven laps in because he got so tired on his shoulders. If I can get better lap times, I may get one of these. Power steering would help. We’re only using one arm to drive, and he was like, ‘I can’t do it, although I know a way to strengthen one of my arms.... lol "

“To see that arch was interesting.”

 

Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

By Kelly Crandall - Oct 5, 2025, 8:06 PM ET

'It was just relief' passing backward Chastain to advance in playoffs – Logano

Joey Logano had a big belly laugh when describing what he saw coming through the final chicane at the end of Sunday’s race at the Charlotte Roval, and how could he not?

The chaos on the final lap benefited the reigning Cup Series champion by advancing him into the Round of 8. Logano drove around the backward cars of Ross Chastain and Denny Hamlin, the former having been the driver he needed to beat for the final transfer spot.

“Uh, cars in reverse, wide open,” Logano laughed. “I saw [Chastain] going in there sideways trying to get the No. 11 and I was like, ‘Oh boy, this could be the difference right here.’ But at that point, I was just a passenger. We did what we did; our bed was made. I was too far back to do anything myself, so I was just going to go through the corner and hope for the best.”

There appeared to be nothing left Logano could do by the final lap, tied with Chastain in points, set to advance on a tiebreak. The move Chastain made on Hamlin, desperately needing the position, opened the door for Alex Bowman, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Logano to drive by at the finish line. In doing so, Logano overtook Chastain by four points.

“It was just relief,” the Penske driver said. “The No. 1 was faster than us today, but I thought after they had their issues on pit road the first time, he was 10 or 12 spots behind us, but when he stayed out and got stage points, I didn’t see that coming. Their long-haul was just really good; it was solid. So was the guy who won the race (Shane van Gisbergen). They have something figured out there, and we have to figure that out.

“But there at the end, we were at the point where we were probably going to get beat. Paul [Wolfe] did Paul-type things and figured it out, and put us in the spot.”

Wolfe called Logano to pit road for tires with 11 laps to go. It came on the same lap Chastain passed Logano for the 13th position. The move swung the points in Chastain’s favor as Logano had been leading the Trackhouse driver.

Logano was eight points behind Chastain with six laps to go, six points behind with five laps to go, and four points behind with three laps to go. At the white flag, it was one point between the No. 1, who was continuously losing positions, and the No. 22, who made up ground.

Then came Chastain’s move to swing things back in Logano’s favor because, as Logano said, “Desperate people do desperate things. The playoffs make you question your morals plenty of times. …. It’s 'What are you willing to do?'”

Logano's hunt for a fourth championship remains alive. A year ago, he advanced out of the Round of 8 and won the next week at Las Vegas to immediately clinch his way into the title race.

“We’re a dangerous team,” he said of some of the competition not wanting to see him advance again. “Anything can happen with us. We’re just a bunch of scrapers. We keep grinding away.