It took what amounted to a buzzer beater for Ryan Blaney to earn the opportunity to return to Phoenix Raceway this weekend with an opportunity to defend his NASCAR Cup Series championship.
But it came down to the figurative wire, winning on Sunday at Martinsville against all odds, that his Penske No. 12 team had virtually no time over the past month to remotely prepare for this race.
On the other end of the spectrum, their teammates at the No. 22 car have been locked in for almost a month now with Joey Logano winning the first race of the Round of 8 at Las Vegas and having done nothing but prepare for Phoenix ever since.
“I’d say on the 12 team, we’ve done very minor preparations for Phoenix,” said crew chief Jonathan Hassler on Sunday. “I would say probably 20 percent of the prep that we’ll do. But company-wide with the 22 getting the win, our whole company has done a lot of work to get prepared for Phoenix and make sure that we’re bringing the best stuff that we can do. We’ll definitely dive into that.
“Really all of the team at Team Penske work really well together. A lot of times we run very similar if not the same setups. We’ll be able to dive into those notes and be very competitive next week.”
It also helps that the two most recent champions are really good at Phoenix so there is no doubt that both have to be ranked favorites 1a and 1b going into the weekend. So what is the level of what Darrell Waltrip used to call ‘co-opetition,’ a portmanteau of cooperation and competition?
Well, there are the individual drivers, their crew chiefs and car-specific engineers but then there’s the other engineering employees of Team Penske and they support the whole company. The same is no doubt true of the No. 2 and 21 cars too now they’re both eliminated.
“We got to take care of our car, they have to take care of their car,” said Logano on Cup Series championship media day on Thursday at Phoenix. “The people at the shop, Team Penske, there’s really not any employees at Team Penske that are just 22 team or just 12 or just 2. Everybody works on the cars together, so… Doesn’t really change.”
Logano also says the data sharing amongst the 12 and 22 will be unchanged as has been the case over the past 35 races, too.
“It doesn’t change,” Logano said. “It continues. It continues. We know why we got here, ’cause we worked together, right? Can’t stop that. It’s worked thus far.”
Blaney echoed those same sentiments and credited Hassler for how he works with No. 22 crew chief Paul Wolfe as well.
“There’s never any secrets that are kept no matter what it is,” Blaney said. “There’s two of us racing for the championship, still an open book. Jonathan and Paul talked, This is where I’m going to be, this is where I’m going to be. Okay, if we agree on some things, great. If not, this is their own idea.
“That side I think makes us incredibly strong. I feel like we utilize all our teams really good at Team Penske. That’s what makes us successful. We didn’t vary from that at all just because that’s the way we do it at Team Penske. That’s the way Roger wants it done. That’s the way he’s done it for a long time to get to where he is.
“You don’t want to stray from that path just because you’re racing against each other for a championship. You race together, against each other, every week. You have to use your strengths. That’s one of our strengths, is communication.”
When Logano won the championship in 2022, he had non-finalist Blaney practically serving as a jammer for him. Logano has certainly helped Blaney over the years too. But what happens if they’re racing 1-2 for the championship in the final laps?
As far as they’re concerned, that’s very good for Roger Penske.
“I think the advantage of it is that we have a better percentage chance of bringing all of Team Penske a championship, right,” Blaney said. “That’s great. You just have 50 percent shot, if we’re being blunt, to bring Team Penske a championship. That’s amazing, right? That fires everybody else up that works for Team Penske that don’t have an allegiance. That doesn’t work on just the 22 or the 12, whatever.
“Obviously we’re selfish and we want to be that person and that team to bring it. For everybody else that has their hands in Team Penske as a whole, that is great. It fires them up that we have two chances. …
“I mean, yeah, obviously the difficult part could be if Joey and I are running 1-2 at the end of the race and we’re racing hard. That’s great if we’re 1-2, right? Overall that’s great. Roger’s always been the way of there’s no team orders, there’s no number one car, number two car, number three car. It’s just race each other as hard as you can. I don’t care who finishes first or second, as long as you finish first and second, right? Meaning do not wreck each other.”
And Logano says whatever he loses in having to share data with Blaney, they both gain over William Byron and Tyler Reddick.
“We kind of have to work together a little bit more rather than telling everyone what we want,” Logano said. “That part changes a little bit.
“Does it affect much? Probably pretty small. It’s worth the trade-out for the ability to bring Roger a championship, multiplying our chances by two seems to help.”