Penske closes nearly perfect season with 3rd consecutive NASCAR championship

AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP) — There is no such a thing as a perfect season. At least that is what Roger Penske told The Associated Press hours after winning his third consecutive NASCAR championship. Maybe not. But Team Penske sure came close. It started in January with a rare show of emotion from "The Captain" — Josef Newgarden said his 87-year-old boss was in tears — after Team Penske won its first Rolex 24 at Daytona endurance race since 1969. Weeks later, Joey Logano put a Penske car on the pole for the Daytona 500 for the first time in team history. It turned out Logano was wearing an illegal glove for that historic qualifying run — a trick Penske lit into his veteran leader for even trying — but the organization moved on to win nearly everything else in major motorsports this season. Will Power came up short in the IndyCar championship to three-time champion Alex Palou, and Team Penske didn't win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but shy of that? Most major trophies say Penske this year. The IndyCar team — rocked by its own cheating scandal in the season-opening race — won six races and Newgarden claimed a second consecutive Indianapolis 500 victory. Scott McLaughlin finished third in the final standings. The sports car program that Penske has built from scratch with partner Porsche last month won the IMSA championship and two weekends ago in Bahrain won the World Endurance Championship. At the same time in Martinsville, Virginia, reigning NASCAR champion Ryan Blaney won the race to put two Penske cars in Sunday's winner-take-all Cup Series championship at Phoenix Raceway. A 50% chance is pretty decent odds for any team owner, but Penske was armed with 2022 champion Logano, defending champion Blaney and a shot at winning three straight Cup titles. The organization delivered, with Logano earning his third championship in a closing laps battle with Blaney that gave Penske its first 1-2 NASCAR points finish in team history. Team Penske is also the only team to win the Cup championship since NASCAR introduced its new car in 2022, and the organization is the first since Hendrick Motorsports in 1998 to win three-straight titles with multiple drivers. Longtime sponsor Shell-Pennzoil was on the car for both Newgarden's Indy 500 win and Logano's championship Sunday, and, as far as Penske is concerned, this season ranks among the best for an organization that began in 1968. "Well, I guess you'd have to say it's probably, if not the best, one of the best," Penske said. "I think that obviously not to win the IndyCar championship, which of course it's where we all started and built our first racing team, was disappointing." And there it is, the part about nothing ever being perfect. Penske can still find a shortfall in this otherwise impeccable season that saw the organization win its 100th Cup Series race with Ford; a 20th Indianapolis 500 win; a second career sweep of front row qualifying at Indy; the 100th sports car win and 100th sports car pole for the organization; Logano becoming just the 10th driver in NASCAR history to win three or more titles, and crew chief Paul Wolfe, with 41 victories, now the winningest active team leader in the Cup Series. It is all the people who have made this a banner season, Penske insisted. His name is on the cars, but it is the long-term employees who make the organization so successful. "Racing is a common thread through our company. It's our brand, and of course we want to win," Penske said. "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." He listed the key personnel of his race teams, all Penske-grown and not plucked away from another team — a key factor in both loyalty and commitment to the "Penske Perfect" cause. "They have that domain knowledge, which makes it so important, and they work as one team," Penske said. "So what I need to do is continue to push them because we're not interested in sitting here and not having the success. We talk about the 24 Hours of Daytona, that rubbed off on these guys. "They're always asking me how are we doing?" Penske continued. "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 (Monday) are going to be just climbing the walls with happiness because of the success — that's what I'm in it for." Logano, in the glow of his latest championship, quoted his father to explain what it is like to work for Penske: "You can't soar like an eagle if you're working with a bunch of turkeys," he said of Tom Logano's mantra. "You think about what Team Penske is today, racing in all the different forms of motorsports and winning in all of them, like where else do you want to go? This is where you go to win. You surround yourself with a winner, that's what happens," Logano said. "There's a lot of eagles there. There's a lot of really smart people, a lot of driven individuals, and that goes through so many different forms throughout Penske." ___ AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing