THIS WEEK IN FORD RACING
October 1, 2013
Roger Penske has won just about everything imaginable in his racing career, but the one trophy that has eluded him to this point is the NASCAR Nationwide Series owner’s championship. With five races remaining the 22 team, led by crew chief Jeremy Bullins, holds a 34-point lead over the 54 car owned by Joe Gibbs Racing. Led by drivers Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, AJ Allmendinger and Ryan Blaney, the No. 22 Ford Mustang has won six of the last nine NNS races going into this weekend’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway.Penske recently spoke with Ford Racing about his organization’s opportunity for sweeping both NNS championships and how their first year back with Ford has gone overall.
ROGER PENSKE, Owner, Penske Racing – WHAT KIND OF EMOTIONS DO YOU HAVE AS YOU SEE SAM CHASING THE DRIVER’S CHAMPIONSHIP AND THE 22 TEAM LEADING THE OWNER’S CHAMPIONSHIP WITH FIVE RACES TO GO? “Obviously, it’s a critical time with five races to go. I think both cars have showed a tremendous amount of speed and consistency. When I look at Dover, Joey was the class of the field. They talk about strategy, but it looked like we had the best car once we made the change after the first stop. Sam struggled a little bit, but I think the speeding penalty really put him in the back of the pack, but, overall, it’s going to be reliability and keeping your nose clean by not making mistakes. You can’t have speeding in the pits and you can’t have an issue on the race track. To me, we’re staying focused. I think we’ve got good cars. The crews have been excellent and this would be a great win for us if we could get both of those championships. We’ve had the driver’s championship and never had the owner’s, but when you’re looking at a team like Childress and also racing Gibbs and Kyle Busch, you know you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
WOULD THIS BE THE PERFECT WAY TO WIN TWO CHAMPIONSHIPS BY HAVING BOTH CARS CONTRIBUTING? “That’s the goal. I think for Sam being able to put something in the book where he’s come over to NASCAR and been able to win a championship is something that I think is foremost in his mind. Obviously, we didn’t win the owner’s championship when Brad won it a few years ago, so there’s no question that’s high on our list. We’ve got 12 wins so far this season with our Ford Mustang and it’s been a terrific combination coming into this year with a new product and new engine. What we have has turned out to be a really good package and there’s no question that we’ve got the speed.”
HAVE YOU SEEN ANYTHING LIKE WHAT THE 22 TEAM HAS DONE THIS YEAR WITH FOUR DIFFERENT DRIVERS WINNING RACES? “I think you look at Joey and Brad. These are two experienced Cup drivers and both of them have raced Nationwide cars over the last few years so they know how they drive and they’ve got a good feel for them. They certainly know the tracks and I think it’s been a plus for us by having them compete in Nationwide. I think it adds to their capability when they get to the Cup side on the weekend, but, to me, it’s a car, it’s a driver, it’s a team and they’re all part of this team. Certainly with AJ getting in the car and being able to make the run that he’s had was amazing. It was good for him as an individual and very important to us as a team to see him launch himself into a good ride for 2014. Of course, Sam’s performance winning a race in the 12 car has really been important to us.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL THIS FIRST YEAR BACK WITH FORD HAS GONE OVERALL? “I’d say the transition to Ford has been a home run. The commitment from Ford Motor Company from top to bottom is something that we haven’t seen with many manufacturers, and certainly when we see NASCAR it’s a first-class organization. The support technically we get on the engine side with Roush Yates has been terrific, and, quite honestly, switching to the new Gen-6 car and also looking at going with a new manufacturer had a lot of challenges, but I think we’ve come together and we’re only going to get better. Obviously, I wish we had both cars in the Chase. We had some reliability issues as we got towards the end of the season, but that happens in racing. Overall, we’re glad with where we are and we’re looking forward to the future.” by it.
