joey logano

Three races in, and the story of the 2014 Cup season is the success of Dale Earnhardt Jr. He wins at Daytona, finishes second in Phoenix, and a hiccup in his fuel pick up was all that kept him from victory at Las Vegas. That and Brad Keselowski. Still, take a gamble, have it turn sour, and still come home second is not all that bad.

Brad Keselowski passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the final lap of Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to score the victory. Keselowski notched his 11th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory after leading a dominating 52 laps of the 267 laps ran in ‘Sin City’.

With the first knock out qualifying of the season and special guests like AJ Foyt celebrating the 50th anniversary of Phoenix International Speedway, here is what else was surprising and not surprising from The Profit on CNBC 500 presented by Small Business Fueling America.

Daytona was great. Phoenix was not bad, once you got used to the differences. One week we had a 2.5-mile superspeedway, the next we got was a single mile circuit. It rained in Florida, yet despite the forecast the only rain came to prematurely end the Nationwide race on Saturday. They ran in big packs in the southeast, not so much in the southwest.

With an eye to increasing that ever important fitness level for drivers and crew alike, Team Penske recently announced the hiring of Jim Beichner...

After an off-season filled with snow, as well as major changes in the rules of the sport, here is what was surprising and not...

Day three of the Sprint Media Tour concluded with Team Penske. Penske’s lineup is somewhat different this year. Returning members are 2012 Sprint Cup Champion Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, and Ryan Blaney. Blaney will split his time between the Nationwide Series and the Camping World Truck Series in 2014.

When they are done determining who is in and who is out each week, only 25 drivers on ten teams will actually matter. The rest will simply be hamburger helper sprinkled amongst the real meat.

A year or two ago, let us say that Brian France had a brainwave. He came up with a proposal to allow 16 drivers into the Chase, first determined by wins gathered up to and including Richmond.

This was pretty tough to put together. Honestly, anybody in the top 10 outside of first could be ranked in any order, and so many teams are so good it's tough to put them in order.