If Joey Logano’s dominant win at North Wilkesboro Speedway wasn’t convincing enough, his triumph over Chase Briscoe on Saturday night (Aug. 15) at Richmond Raceway removed all doubt that Team Penske has found some magic in the last month.
Austin Cindric finished third at Richmond for the best short track finish of his NASCAR Cup Series career. Josh Berry has three consecutive top 10s, including a fourth at Iowa Speedway earlier this month. Ryan Blaney has won three poles in the last five races, scored a dominant win at EchoPark Speedway, led the most laps at Iowa and was right in contention at Richmond until brake issues plagued him in the second half of the race.
Even Logano’s races outside his wins at North Wilkesboro and Richmond have been convincing. He finished third in the Brickyard 400 while surrounded by a sea of Toyotas, and he was a top-five car at Iowa until a slow pit stop in the final stage sent him to the back of the pack and relegated him to 14th at the finish.
In less than two months, the narrative has shifted from whether Logano would even qualify for The Chase to whether he has the strength to win his fourth championship come November. What changed?
The schedule, for one. Penske has always been strong at superspeedways and short tracks in the Next Gen car, and with the exception of the Brickyard 400, that’s exactly what the schedule has consisted of the last month and will continue to for the rest of the regular season. With New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the summer race at Daytona International Speedway (two races that Penske dominated and won in 2025) up next, look for the team’s recent tear to continue.
But Penske’s rise goes beyond the schedule, and Logano alluded to one of the reasons why in his post-race press conference after winning Richmond.
“Some of the rules that have been changed recently I think helped us some, kind of brought some of the guys that were taking advantage of some of that stuff more back towards us,” Logano said. “I think that helped.”
The big change came at North Wilkesboro, when struts were added to the front splitter that would keep it from “moving/deforming while at speed.”
Whether it’s a coincidence or not, ever since those changes were implemented, the Penske cars have begun to match the Toyotas from Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing that have dominated the season.
Even more impressive about the past month is that Penske, and Logano in particular, have managed to keep pace and one-up Toyota in races that have ended with long green-flag runs.
Why? Because the key to Toyota’s success this year has been its long-run speed. Tyler Reddick won by almost six seconds at Darlington Raceway in March after the final 91 laps went green. Denny Hamlin and Reddick were more than 10 seconds ahead of third place at Kansas Speedway in April when Cody Ware’s spin forced an overtime finish. The final 39 laps at Michigan International Speedway went green in June, and Hamlin won by a whopping 11 seconds. At Naval Base Coronado, Corey Heim and Reddick drove away from the rest of the field by more than 10 seconds in the final 12 laps of the race.
Oh, there’s more. The final 95 laps at Chicagoland Speedway went green in July, and JGR scored a 1-2-3 finish, with fourth place finishing more than six seconds behind the leaders. JGR finished 1-2 at Iowa in a race that ended with a 132-lap run, and once again, the top two finished more than six seconds ahead of third-place Blaney.
With all that in mind, for Logano’s two wins to have come in races that ended in triple-digit-lap green-flag runs is exceptionally impressive.
North Wilkesboro ended in a 175-lap green-flag run with just six cars on the lead lap, and Logano held off the JGR Toyota of Hamlin by just under a second the entire last run. Third-place Briscoe was the only other driver who finished within 10 seconds of the two leaders, and the highest driver not from Penske or JGR was Shane van Gisbergen in fifth.
Richmond was a repeat of North Wilkesboro. The race ended on a 108-lap green-flag run, and Logano nosed out Briscoe by 0.392 seconds. Cindric in third was the only other driver who finished within 10 seconds of the two leaders, and once again, the highest-finishing car not from Penske or JGR was fifth.
In this last month, Penske has flipped a switch, and Logano has beaten the Toyotas at their own game in two of the last four races.
But to answer the question posed in the title, we won’t truly know if Penske has caught Toyota until The Chase begins. Penske has clearly found something, but it’s doing all its damage at tracks it has historically been good at. Can it match JGR and 23XI at tracks it hasn’t been good at as of late?
The tracks in question are, of course, 1.5-mile non-drafting ovals, a type of track where Penske drivers only have two wins in the last 23 races. There are four 1.5-mile tracks in the final 10 races, and those will serve as the biggest test for Penske. If it can match or outrun the Toyotas at those tracks in September and October, Blaney and Logano have great shots at the title considering the rest of the schedule consists of superspeedways and the shorter, flatter tracks that have been their bread and butter.
For now, Toyota remains the favorite for the title, and after all, Logano’s last two wins didn’t come without a Toyota breathing right down his neck on the final run. But Penske is beginning to close the gap, and JGR/23XI no longer look like the runaway favorites that they did just one month ago.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf