Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, speaks to Team Penske owner, Roger Penske in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway on November 10, 2024 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images for NASCAR)
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NASCAR: Q&A with Championship Team Owner Roger Penske

Posted by AR1 staff

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by the owner of Team Penske, and that of course is Roger Penske.

Roger, three consecutive NASCAR Cup Series championships and a one-two in the points this year with Joey and Ryan. What is the significance to you with everything else that you have accomplished in your career?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, really it’s all about the people. When you look at our team and you look at the domain knowledge, we have a big chart as you walk in the shop, and over half our people have been there 10 years. I think that continuity has been terrific.

Then the sponsors we’ve had have stayed with us because of the success. Then you take Joey and you take Ryan, and also Austin, we’ve got a great team.

I remember when Blaney came in with his dad, I think he was 18 years old and he was this skinny little kid, and look at him today. He put on a great show.

I can’t thank everybody enough. Ford has been behind us from the very beginning. To think that the Shell car won here and won the Indy 500 is a pretty good one, too, so maybe we can get a renewal. (Laughter.)

What did that drive by Joey say about him?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I think you saw, I think it was two-thirds of the way through the race when he came up and got right to the lead there was amazing. And I knew we had good cars all day, but how this place is and even at the end there when we had three Chevies ahead of us on that restart I was really concerned, to be honest with you.

But Joey had a mega restart, and once Blaney got clear, the next thing they had to race each other, which was a little concerning to me, to be honest with you. It’s one thing if you’re racing at a normal track, but when you’re racing for the championship, you never know what’s going to happen.

(Indiscernible.)

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I know them well, but they’re hungry. There’s no question they race fair. It was great to see the speed that the cars had in the long run, and I think that was the difference. To get a good restart like Joey did, it was a matter then of just keeping cool. He pulled out a two-second lead and Blaney brought it down to two or three tenths. I couldn’t ask for anything more, and it was a clean race.

We had a jack man that had an issue, nothing to do with the race, but I think a personal issue that had taken him to the hospital. And we took the jack man off the 2 car, just to show you, and put him on Joey’s car and moved some people around. So that’s the flexibility and the things that we have within the team.

I want to go back to 12, 13 years ago when you guys first started talking with Joey about coming over to the 22 car. You guys have a blueprint, whether it’s Mears, Helio, you guys have a model of a Penske driver. I’m curious what were the things you saw in Joey that surely you had to know that he fit that model even at a point where he didn’t know if he would be the guy, that Coach didn’t think he was that guy?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, it’s interesting, I have to say I give Brad Keselowski a lot of credit for introducing me to Joey. I remember we were at Daytona and we were walking across the road there, and he introduced me to him.

I had watched him, and we wanted to get a full-time driver in the Cup side. And I called Joe Gibbs, to be honest with you, and said, Joe, I’m very interested in hiring Joey. And he said wait a week because they were trying to get sponsorship for him. Were not able to do that, and we put it together.

He’s been a leader the whole time. He’s taken a lot of heat on things, but when he puts the helmet on, you saw today, there’s nobody that gets after it like he does.

He and Brittany, what they do day in and day out for the community, he’s just the full package altogether.

Speaking of the heat that’s on him sometimes, he came in here today and said, We want to go out on Sunday and step on their throat. Did you hear that he said that, and does it make you nervous a little bit?

ROGER PENSKE: That’s the second time I’ve heard it. I might have used different words, but that’s okay, when you win, you can say whatever you want, I guess.

Blaney spent a lot of time this week talking about how he just wants to make you proud. This year in particular, as you mentioned, the Indy 500 victory, the Rolex victory, the IMSA championship, last week’s WEC championship, now your third consecutive Cup championship. What still do you want to do? Do you want to win every week? What do these guys have to do to fulfill their goal of making you proud?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, as you know, racing is a common thread through our company. It’s our brand, and of course we want to win.

I think that Ryan and Joey, they do everything they can for the team, and Austin and all the other people that have been with us, Mears over the years, have felt the same way.

What I try to do is provide them with what they need to be champions. We’re not always up like this. Sure, we want to win more. We want to win properly. I think when you race in this league with the teams we have here and you see the execution — you’ve got to give Mike Nelson and Travis Geisler and Paul Wolfe and the people who have been — Jonathan Hassler, these guys are just outstanding. And we grew them. We didn’t put them in from the top in the final, they came up through the bottom, every one of them. So they have that domain knowledge, which makes it so important, and they work as one team.

So what I need to do is continue to push them because we’re not interested in sitting here and not have the success, and I think that’s been a great thing for us, not only here in NASCAR racing but in all the other series because it rubs off.

We talk about the 24 Hours of Daytona, that rubbed off on these guys. They’re always asking me how are we doing. And I think when you think about it, the number of people that we have that we touch every race in our company, and we have 74,000 people that tomorrow are going to be just climbing the walls with happiness because of the success.

That’s what I’m in it for. It’s not another race. It is but it isn’t. It’s about being able to show our people and our partners what kind of company we are. So this certainly helps.

You’re an INDYCAR championship short of a full sweep of the year. Where would you rank this year for Team Penske?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I guess you’d have to say it’s probably, if not the best, one of the best. I think that obviously not to win the INDYCAR championship, which of course it’s where we all start and build our first racing team, was disappointing. But it’s one of those things that you try and you don’t — Ganassi, you have to give him credit. He continues to put up great numbers with his guys.

I told him, Come on back to NASCAR, it’s gotten easier. (Laughter.)

In the 76-year history of the NASCAR Cup Series, there have only been two other owners out of hundreds who have won three or more Cup Series championships in a row. What does that mean to you just in the realm of history on top of everything you’ve already done?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I guess to get in that club, I think it’s Rick Hendrick and Petty; am I right?

Junior Johnson.

ROGER PENSKE: Junior Johnson. Well, I followed Junior for a long time, and Rick and I are great friends. And it’s interesting, when we got in because the 48 was disqualified, I talked to Rick, and he said, I’m glad it was you that got in.

And I said to him, Hopefully you don’t feel that same way at the end of the season.

Anyhow, it’s great. It’s just another opportunity for us that we were able to conquer.

Last year Joey said when you walk in Team Penske, you immediately feel that pressure that you have to win, and if you don’t win every race or every championship, it can feel like a failure. I was curious from your perspective, how have you been able to identify these racers that rise to that pressure instead of faltering?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I think, first, we want drivers that have won in some series. Today the technical relationship with the crew chief and the chief mechanic and the engineer is so important, and of course we have the opportunity to partner with great companies around the world, and to be able to have them communicate.

You kind of look at that, do they have those attributes that they can then be able to be part of that success. We don’t have to tell our guys what to do. They know. But look, they’re serious. We want to do one thing coming down here this weekend. When you have 50 percent of the four cars, you’ve got to execute.

I was concerned during the race there at one point. We pitted early. The guys ran longer. You could see that. But the cars had speed, and the good news is that drivers we do have are executing in a great way.

I want to take Team Penske back a little further. The first time you were in NASCAR in the 1970s, you had Bobby Allison as your driver. He was successful with the Matador. What did Bobby mean to Penske in those years, and how did that kind of set your foot and tone for now?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, Bobby was a great friend, not only to me but our family and many, many fans throughout the world. He was a class guy. I respected him a lot.

We were very fortunate to have him come with us because he brought so much expertise. I remember in the Matador when we won the Darlington 500, he’s had tragedy in his family, but he always stood up. I would say, Bobby, when you think of the garage area, you’re probably one of the most respected drivers of all time. And to see us lose him here over the last 24 hours is certainly heartfelt for all of us. We’re thinking about his family.

But he went to Indy, raced at Indy — it wasn’t any different race for him than anybody else. It was great to see Kyle coming, and I know Kurt was there. And to me, I guess you get to a certain age and those are things that happen.

But I think all of us here have to say a prayer for himself, and certainly thoughts go out to he and his family.

Joey Logano won his first championship back in 2018. What have you seen him develop from 2018 now to 2024 and he’s a three-time Cup champion?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I think first he had to shake off some of the reputation he had. They called him sliced bread I think it was, or whatever it was. But he shook that off pretty quickly. We were behind him, and I think that was key, and he just grew and grew and grew. And not only on the track but off the track, when you think about what he does, he and Brittany do for the outside world is amazing.

I’d go back to his first championship the night before the championship in Homestead, he was at I think one of the stores there handing out turkeys to people that didn’t have what he had. That’s one side of him.

The other side of him when he puts the helmet on, there’s nobody out there that runs harder than he does, and I think that was just him maturing over time and getting the confidence that he could win and he could race anyone.

He certainly proved it today, and he has for the last three championships for sure.