Entering the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season, arguably the largest silly season move didn’t come from one singular driver, but from a team-wide realignment. Team Penske uprooted the crews of Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, and Ryan Blaney and stunned the racing world; Paul Wolfe to the No. 22 team, Todd Gordon to the No. 12 team, and Jeremy Bullins was to be reunited with his former NASCAR Xfinity Series partner.
From the drop of the green flag in Daytona Beach, it seemed like the team owned by Roger Penske could be the one to de-throne Joe Gibbs Racing. With dominance on display each week and having won half of the races before NASCAR came to a halt due to COVID-19, it appeared they would be the organization to beat.
Upon the sanctioning body’s return, the Ford stable picked up where they left off; Blaney notched a win early and maintained his status as one of the most dominant cars. Keselowski secured two victories of his own, and while Logano hasn’t won since before the break, he’s clicked off an additional 14 top-10s.
In dissecting and analyzing the regular season statistics between the Penske trio, the experiment has proven to be a success, as the results essentially mirror those of 2019. With the playoffs underway, the true test of this experiment will hinder on each team’s ability to tackle the postseason.
The case can be made that no other organization was met with more adversity in the Round of 16 opener at Darlington Raceway. An all-around sloppy night for the Ford Performance drivers turned out to be a testament of each team’s determination and perseverance — none more so than Keselowski.
After an early incident in the Southern 500 relegated the No. 2 team to the back for most of the event, the Bullins and Keselowski tandem rekindled their 14-win Xfinity Series magic and clawed their way to an unlikely 11th-place finish. Even more impressively, the duo backed up that performance with a championship-caliber effort. They led a race-high 192 laps at Richmond International Raceway en route to their fourth victory.
With title frontrunners Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin being non-factors in the event, Keselowski made his presence known as a potential spoiler for the championship at Phoenix Raceway. Having dominated at all three flat shorter tracks (New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Richmond, and Phoenix) with the 750 horsepower low-downforce package, the No. 2 team has been clicking on all cylinders when it counts, and he attributes this success to his new crew.
“I put no expectations on the year coming into it other than to run our best and to push myself to be the best driver I can be and be the best leader of the team I can be,” Keselowski said. “The team is really coming together and continues to click, and we’ll continue to build new knowledge together that we’re applying in a great manner.
“I know that’s probably hard to make much out of, but it takes so many little pieces to come together to win and to be great. I’ve ran really good here on the Cup level for probably the last eight to ten years, but I’ve had a couple seasons that were great, and the difference between good to great is just all the tiny little things and the details, and I feel like a lot of those details are going our way.”
Riding back-to-back third-place finishes, Logano has been the most consistent driver in the playoffs. Although overshadowed by his teammate’s dominance, the driver of the No. 22 has been equally as good with the low-downforce package and boasts an average finish of 2.7 at one-mile short tracks — the best in the sport.
With only two victories in 2020 coming pre-COVID, Logano admits it’s been a struggle adjusting to a new team with NASCAR’s new safety guidelines in place. In meetings being limited to Zoom teleconferences, he believes Wolfe has done a masterful job orchestrating the No. 22 group, but it’s forced him to take a back seat this season in terms of a leadership role alongside his new crew chief.
“I want to be the leader with Paul (Wolfe), but my hands are tied,” the 2018 champion said. “I’m typically the guy that’s in the garage until the garage closes. The way I led was by being present and building relationships. It’s been a little harder to do that this year for sure, but we have to find unique ways of trying to gather the team together and rally the troops.”
If there’s one driver who’s been the biggest enigma this season, it’s Blaney. Establishing himself as a viable championship contender early on by leading laps and contending for wins, you’d gotten the sense that the floodgates were beginning to open for the 26-year-old after winning at Talladega Superspeedway.
With only four top-10s since finding victory lane in June, not much has gone right for the No. 12 team. Failing to finish above 19th in the opening round of the playoffs, the crew led by Gordon now finds themselves in a must-win situation heading to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend.
As a young driver, it’s been an uphill battle adjusting to a new team after becoming accustomed to a certain “language” over the years with Bullins. Still, Blaney has enjoyed gathering new perspectives and data from his championship winning crew chief.
“I think it’s neat when you switch crew chiefs for the first time because when I was with Jeremy, you get kind of locked into one mode,” Blaney told The Circuit Journal. “The biggest thing I noticed when I switched to Todd was everyone approaches things differently, and it opened my mind up to different things to try. There may be certain things I like that Todd does a little better than Jeremy or vise versa, but it’s just knowledge of two different minds. For me, I combine those two, and it just opens your eyes a little bit on different possibilities and capabilities out there of what you can learn as a driver.”
Down, but not out, Blaney has been notorious for performing well in the playoffs as of late. Last year, he picked up six top-10s, including a win down the stretch, and with Gordon’s experience atop the pit box, anything is possible. Not to mention, the 26-year-old has led a combined 439 laps at Bristol and was riding a three consecutive top-10 streak until a wreck derailed his day in the Spring, so he should feel confident heading into the elimination event.
As for Keselowski and Logano, they’re shaping up to be worthy adversaries to Harvick and Hamlin, should they be able to advance to the Championship 4 at Phoenix. It will be telling to see how these teams can navigate their way through the remaining rounds of the playoffs, but it seems like a winning combination for the Penske trio.
