MOORESVILLE, N.C. — On the outskirts of this booming town in North Carolina’s Piedmont is Team Penske’s magnificent racing facility.
It’s more than a race shop, it’s a racing factory that houses Team Penske’s NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity Series, NTT IndyCar Series and Porsche Penske Motorsports new sports car team.
It was one of the first of racing mega-shops, following DEI’s famous “Garage Mahal” located down the road from Mooresville on NC-3.
Inside the beautiful facility is a testament to the team’s incredible 56-year history that began in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania when team owner Roger Penske was a young businessman.
From the banners that signify its record 18 Indianapolis 500 victories, 17 IndyCar National Championships and two NASCAR Cup Series championships, it is motorsports version of the old Boston Garden and Yankee Stadium when it comes to success.
There isn’t much that Roger Penske hasn’t achieved in his incredible career as a racer and a businessman.
But Joey Logano enters Sunday’s NASCAR Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway to give Penske something he has never achieved:
A chance to win both the NASCAR Cup Series Championship and the NTT IndyCar Series Championship in the same season.
Team Penske’s Will Power scored the first of the two championships on September 11 when he won the 2022 IndyCar title after a third-place finish in the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey.
Logano can complete the championship sweep for Team Penske if he wins Sunday’s final NASCAR race of the season or is the highest finishing driver out of the Championship Four that also includes Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing, Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports and Ross Chastain of Trackhouse Racing.
“Obviously, we always want to win championships,” Logano told SPEED SPORT. “I’m happy for them (Will Power’s IndyCar team). There’s not really a rivalry between IndyCar and NASCAR. We want to see everybody succeed, whether it’s the sports car program or IndyCar.
“Everybody wants to win together. We work together in some ways and I’m happy to see their success. Obviously, we want to have success as well, but having a dual championship season for Team Penske with IndyCar and NASCAR that would be really special and hopefully we’re the ones that deliver that.”
When former Team Penske driver Rusty Wallace won his only NASCAR Cup Series championship in 1989, he drove for drag racer Raymond Beadle’s Blue Max Racing Team. He joined Team Penske in 1991 and came close to championships, but never earned one for Penske.
Neither did Ryan Newman.
In fact, Penske’s first NASCAR Cup Series championship came in 2012 with Brad Keselowski. That season, Ryan Hunter-Reay won the IndyCar Series championship for Andretti Autosport.
Logano delivered Penske’s second NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2018. Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing won the fifth of his six NTT IndyCar Series championships that season.
At 85, Penske could add one more accomplishment to his incredible record if Logano delivers the Cup Series title Sunday evening at Phoenix.
Walt Czarnecki is the Vice Chairman of Team Penske Corporation as well as Executive Vice President, a member of the Executive Committee and a Director of the Penske Corporation.
He has been involved with the Penske Corporation since 1970 when he was with American Motors and joined the Penske Corporation in 1978.
“I was actually looking at some statistics earlier in the week, and since 1967, we have been multiple champions in seven years, seven seasons, and in three of those seasons, we won three championships,” Czarnecki told SPEED SPORT. “It was either an IndyCar championship, NASCAR Xfinity owners’ championship, Australian Supercars championship, NASCAR Cup Series, but never, to your point, IndyCar, and Cup. It really would be something to do that.
“It would be one of our goals to do it, particularly this year, so you’re absolutely right.
“We’ve been blessed with good teams all those year, been able to accomplish a lot, but still a little bit more to do, and as I said, this will be one of our goals, to win the Cup and win the IndyCar in the same year.”
Czarnecki believes that Logano, who was a teenager when he broke into NASCAR, but is now a 32-year-old veteran, has all the ingredients to hoist the NASCAR Cup Series championship trophy Sunday night.
“It’s interesting that someone made this observation the other day, in fact we were at Martinsville, and said, Joey is the senior person of the four drivers,” Czarnecki said. “He’s the, so-called, ‘grizzled veteran,’ to use that term.
“But Joey has become a leader. He’s become a leader off the race track, as well. I’ve seen him mature as a person.
“He is in his 11th year now with us. He started in 2013. Just the way he conducts himself both on and off the race track, but particularly off the race track, the way he deals with our sponsor partners, the way he deals with the media, the way he deals with the foundation work that he does, he’s become a well-rounded individual.
“Of course, on the race track, we all know what he does. Then internally, he takes the lead in our meetings, as he should, as the most experienced of our three drivers. He’s got a lot to share, a lot of information to impart on the others.
“For sure he has assumed that role. He’s assumed that mantle. He has assumed it very well.:
He has achieved it so well that on a team that has had the “greats of the greats” in auto racing history driver for Team Penske, he could add one more impressive achievement by giving the team a championship sweep in NASCAR and IndyCar.