NASCAR on TV this week

NASCAR 101: What Makes Penske So Good in This Playoff Format?

Team Penske has been in the business of winning for quite a while now, and this last weekend was another chapter in the team’s storied history.

Ever since Roger Penske retired as a driver in 1965, his teams have consistently been able to find victory lane, even if it wasn’t in NASCAR. Just look at last year’s NASCAR Cup Series champion, Ryan Blaney, for proof. When Penske won its first Cup championship in 2012, not many thought that the motorsport tycoon’s team would be in the position it finds itself in today.

However, looking back at the previous few regular-season champions, the team hasn’t had the best runs throughout the entire duration of the season. Instead, Penske has waited to make moves during the postseason, especially since the inception of the current playoff format.

Since 2017, Penske drivers have won three Cup championships: Joey Logano twice and Blaney once, more than any other since that timestamp. How, though, have they done it? The truth might be more boring than some wish to believe, especially if they’ve got some Penske gear laying around the pad.

See also
2-Headed Monster: Are NASCAR Championships Legitimate?

Fans would be forgiven for believing that Penske’s trio may be sandbagging at times during the regular season given the postseason results, but the reality simply doesn’t back up that train of thought.

Blaney and Logano won plenty of races during their championship seasons. One might have a bit more flair for last-lap passes than the other, but they were typically won without too much noise. Plainly put, Penske and its drivers have had successful regular seasons in the years when its drivers won the championship.

Nobody from Penske would say they’re saving their cars, strategies or data until the end, because if that were the case, they simply wouldn’t get to the end to implement the things the team had been saving.

Cup teams can’t afford to sandbag. The field is too competitive, too fast and far too top heavy to spare any kind of design implementation or data usage at the soonest possible effective moment. No, Penske isn’t sandbagging anything.

Penske’s biggest competitors, Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, employ four drivers each. That means those teams pay for four charters, four cars, four drivers and four full staffs to help those teams compete at the highest possible levels.

JGR driver Denny Hamlin owns 23XI Racing, of course, which to many is just an extension of the JGR name, making its stable even larger.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to tell you that Penske only employs three: Logano, Blaney and Austin Cindric. That’s at least 25% more money and at least 25% less headache when it comes to fielding a competitive team. Cindric may not have made his mark just yet, but this year especially, he’s showing signs.

Of course Penske has other teams considering Penske Entertainment owns INDYCAR and races in other series, but by and large, its NASCAR operation is a large chunk of the motorsports division as a whole. And it’s made exponentially cheaper by not having a NASCAR Xfinity Series team and only fielding three Cup drivers.

It’s a saying as old as time itself, but in Penske’s case, it may be more true than anywhere else. Roger Penske may be the most patient man in NASCAR.

Think back to when Blaney was signed to the team out of the Wood Brothers Racing car. Was he a championship-caliber driver at that point? Absolutely not. Now, he’s in his seventh season with the team with a really good chance to make it to a decade.

See also
NASCAR Mailbox: Will Toyota Win When It Matters?

After Brad Keselowski won the team’s inaugural championship in 2012, when was the next time he brought home the big one? Trick question, because the answer is never. But he still ran with the team until the founding of RFK Racing, his current team, in 2022.

Logano began racing with Penske in 2013. Now, more than a decade later, he’s brought the team two championships and will race for a third later this season.

This is where Penske is ahead of the field: patience.

There is no secret sauce. There is no dark magic afoot. There is no deep-seeded strategic play. Penske is patient and purposeful in the development of its drivers, and it’s brought the team four championships in its relatively young history, with another potentially on the way.

About the author

Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s Cowbell Corner, an AP Wire reporter, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host and master's student at Mississippi State University. Soon, Tanner will be pursuing a PhD. in Mass Media Studies. Tanner began working with Frontstretch as an Xfinity Series columnist in 2022.

Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter

A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.


Subscribe
Notify of
guest

1 Comment
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
DoninAjax

How many titles has Mr. H won since Brian’s brilliant ideas “improved” his new toy? It’s nice to be Brian’s pet.

1
0
We'd like to hear from you, please comment.x
()
x