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Fortuitous timing and opportunity also plays into Logano’s early success at Joe Gibbs Racing. It’s one thing to sign a driver to a development deal, but it’s another to have a winning record in the Nationwide Series and jump into such a prominent seat immediately at the highest level of the sport. In an earlier era, a driver would not have made it to Cup without being much older – and usually in less-than-stellar equipment.

Another attribute is being raised by a supportive family, or in a situation where the person’s striving and effort is encouraged. The cliché of rich parents “buying” rides for their offspring does exist, but in a more broad sense, the successful drivers of today have parents who, while not always exceedingly wealthy, sacrificed to allow their child to pursue their dreams. Among the many examples include Logano’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin, whose family spent whatever they had (and more) so Denny could race.

Another potential outlier is IndyCar’s Graham Rahal – the son of a great racing champion- who made the save of the year Sunday at Indy, avoiding a crashing John Andretti by spinning his car harmlessly in the short chute between turns one and two. He’s only 20 years old, but grew up around racing and was lucky when a prime seat became available as Sebastien Bourdais left the Newman/Haas/Lanigan team to head to Formula One. The young Rahal won in his first IRL start, and has been very impressive in 2009 with two pole positions already in his trophy case. He exhibits all of the traits and pre-conditions to become an outlier.

Who else fits the outlier description in other racing series around the world? Leave your thoughts in the "comments" section.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Jade Gurss is the owner of fingerprint, inc., a sports publicity company. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, including what is believed to be the biggest-selling motorsports book in American publishing history (Driver #8 with Dale Earnhardt Jr.). His two decades of publicity and marketing experience involves nearly every category of motorsports, including nine innovative seasons as NASCAR publicist for the Budweiser brand and Earnhardt Jr. His blog can be seen at: http://fingerprint.typepad.com