In the garage and around the pits, NASCAR Xfinity Series crew chief Matt Swiderski has a pretty cool nickname.

Everyone calls him “Squid.”

Swiderski laughed when I asked whether they call him that because he puts eight arms around the car.

“It’s an old nickname that goes back to high school,” he said. “Eventually it spread at (Richard Childress Racing) and now at Penske.”

If you’re looking for a Southland connection to root for at this weekend’s NASCAR event at Chicagoland Speedway, Swiderski is your man.

On Saturday, he’ll be the crew chief for defending Monster Energy Cup champion Joey Logano, who will be driving the No. 12 Xfinity car in the Camping World 300.

The Garden Homes native has worked as an engineer and part-time crew chief on the NASCAR circuit since 2005.

He spent several years with Richard Childress Racing and is in his second season with Team Penske.

Swiderski is in charge of the Team Penske Xfinity All-Star car. It doesn’t race every week, but when it does there is usually a Monster Energy Series standout behind the wheel.

Earlier this season, Swiderski worked with Brad Keselowski and Paul Menard, and later on will work with Ryan Blaney.

“It’s pretty cool to be working (in an Xfinity event) with Joey for the first time this season,” Swiderski said. “It’s definitely interesting getting to cycle through all the drivers.

“I spent a lot of years at Childress and felt really comfortable there. This is a good way to get to know the drivers and all the ins and outs of what they’re looking for.”

To say the least, he’s living the dream.

Swiderski is a 1999 Chicago Christian graduate. He got his start in local racing while still in high school.

“One of my good friends (Pete Camp), his uncle raced enduros at Raceway Park,” Swiderski said. “We’d help with that. That led us to eventually build a street stock that we raced at Illiana.”

A few seasons later Swiderski found work with late model driver Jim Malinowski.

“Working with Jim opened up a lot of doors,” Swiderski said. “I got to meet the Dotters, who were working on Eddie Hoffman’s stuff.

“I learned a lot from hanging around and watching those guys. I got a crash course on how to work on a late model.”

In their last two seasons together, Malinowski and Swiderski competed in the CRA Sunoco Super Series.

“He was a very smart kid,” Malinowski said. “He set the car up for me, and did a very good job on it.

“I remember he left to take some classes in Michigan for chassis computer analyzing. When he came back he said, ‘Hey, guess what? Childress just hired me.’ I was really happy for him.”

During his career with RCR, Swiderski worked as a race engineer in the Xfinity series with 2008 champion Clint Bowyer, and on the Monster Energy Cup side with Casey Mears and Kevin Harvick. In 2017, he was promoted to crew chief of their Xfinity car.

Team Penske welcomed “Squid” in 2018 with open arms.

“It’s been fun getting to know Matt over the last year and a half,” Xfinity regular Austin Cindric said. “He has been very hands on since he’s shown up, an asset to our team when coming up with new ideas and progressing our cars. We both have gotten on pretty well since the word go. We both have a pretty goofy sense of humor, and at the end of the day this gig is all about having fun and going fast. Boxes checked.”