With organizational wide success and a strong bond amongst its drivers, Team Penske is emphasizing stability this season.
The harmonious nature within Team Penske is best symbolized in how its three drivers divvied up which Xfinity Series races each will run in 2015.
Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney met for breakfast -- well, technically lunch since Keselowski isn't functional before noon according to Logano -- and essentially chose which races they preferred to run. Logano likened it to a fantasy football draft where they each made their selections in sequential order.
It's a kind of camaraderie that for many years wasn't associated with Penske, which came to be defined by the icy relationship between Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman in the early 2000s. Nowadays Logano and Blaney regularly go-kart, while Keselowski played an instrumental role in Penske signing Logano two years ago.
That chemistry is also the backbone of organization where Keselowski and Logano won a combined 11 races and nearly the Sprint Cup championship last year. And why in an offseason where myriad teams reshuffled its driver and crew chief lineup, Penske introduced the same roster of key personnel during last week's NASCAR Media Tour as it did the previous year.
"Teamwork paid off," team owner Roger Penske said. "To me it's going to be the foundation for us in 2015. Something that's not broken, let's not change it."
Said Keselowski: "The first thing that came to mind when I sat up here was how sorry I felt for the photographers, because it's the same exact picture you took last year. The same shirts, the same people. ... That really speaks to where we're at as a team and as a company."
It was just six years ago when Keselowski recalls walking into Penske's headquarters for the first time and seeing what were essentially three different teams operating under the same corporate banner sharing little-to-no synergy.
Not surprisingly the results among the three teams differed wildly. In Keselowski's first full season, 2010, he and teammate Sam Hornish Jr. went winless and ranked 25th and 29th in point, respectively. Only Kurt Busch, with two victories, made the Chase.
"Now, here we have all our teams working together very closely," Keselowski said. "We certainly have more wins than I think we've had in a long time as a team, and probably the best relationships inside the company that I would say probably ever and I'm just thrilled to be a part of that."
Penske has since contracted to two full-time teams concentrating its efforts on Keselowski and Logano. (Blaney will drive a limited Cup schedule for Wood Brother Racing, which will share a technical alliance with Penske this season. If sponsorship can be found, Penske will likely expand to three cars for 2016.)
And although smaller than Hendrick Motorsports (four teams), Joe Gibb Racing (four) and Roush Fenway Racing (three), Penske has thrived.
"I think it's key that (we're) all on the same level," Logano said. "We all work really well together, that is very important. That trickles all the way down from Roger to everyone working at the shop building our race cars."
Lest you think continuity breeds complacency, Keselowski and Logano are quiet adamant about their goal for the 2015 season. Each expects to continue their winning ways and be a player in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. More so, they are determined to bring Penske its second Cup title, about the only that eluded the team last year.
Despite winning a series-best six times, including two playoff races, Keselowski was eliminated in Round 3 of the Chase. Logano advanced to the championship finale, but a succession of poor pit stops late doomed his title hopes and he finished a distant 16th at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Both enter 2015 as championship favorites.
"We may not have eight cars, but we have three of the best, and that's three of the best teams," Keselowski. "I feel like we have an advantage with that. I think that's a part of our success last year and I think that will be a part of our success for years to come."
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