Team Penske aiming to give Roger Penske an Indy sweep
— -- INDIANAPOLIS -- Roger Penske loves Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He should. He has visited Victory Lane 16 times after the biggest race in the world at the famed oval.
But part of Penske has to hate, or at least stew a little bit, when he returns to IMS a couple of months after the Indianapolis 500. For all the times he has visited Victory Lane at the track, none has come after the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Knowing what IMS means to Penske, it has frustrated an organization to go 0-for-40 in the 22 years of the race. Everyone at the Team Penske shop knows what the Crown Royal 400 means when it goes green Sunday.
"Every year we go to Indy, we know that's kind of Roger's house," says Penske driver Brad Keselowski. "We feel a lot of pressure to deliver there."
For Keselowski and teammate Joey Logano, they have an extra incentive this year. For the first time since 2009 -- and the first time since either of the duo have joined the team -- Penske has the opportunity to sweep the two biggest races at Indianapolis.
Juan Pablo Montoya won the Indianapolis 500 in May. He joined a list of Penske's winners in that race that includes some of the biggest names to ever compete in motorsports -- Mark Donohue, Rick Mears, Bobby Unser, Danny Sullivan, Al Unser, Emerson Fittipaldi, All Unser Jr., Helio Castroneves, Gil de Ferran and Sam Hornish Jr.
It's about time that a stock-car driver join that list of winning major Indy races (Keselowski won the Xfinity Series race at Indy in 2012). And while it might sound a little cliché, Penske believes his drivers can get extra motivated for a race and work even harder.
"I hope they do [have extra motivation] because that will give a little extra effort," Penske said about the potential of an Indianapolis sweep of its two biggest annual events.
Penske already owns a sort of racing "sweep" this year in the sense that he has won the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500 with Logano at Daytona and Montoya at Indianapolis. Now he can win all three in a year, topping it off with his first Brickyard win.
"It might be a dream that you have that opportunity," Penske said about the Indianapolis sweep. "We won at Daytona and Indy, and to think we might have a chance [to sweep Indy] -- we've got two good cars. We've been very competitive the last couple of races.
"But it's going to be a power track, and we'll see where we are. It's going to be exciting."
Penske has seen his cars close to winning at the Brickyard. Rusty Wallace finished second in three of the first nine races at the track. But then from 2003 to 2009, no Penske driver finished higher than 10th and in only one of those races did a Penske driver lead any laps.
Could this be the year? Logano opened the season winning the Daytona 500 but hasn't won since. Keselowski stole a win at Auto Club Speedway but had not challenged weekly until the last two races, where he arguably had the best car at both Kentucky and New Hampshire only to fall short.
As frustrating as those two near-misses crumpled the Penske starch, a win this weekend would wipe all of that away.
"We've won at Kentucky and Loudon [in the past]," Keselowski crew chief Paul Wolfe said. "So maybe that's how it is going to play out. And if that is, that's great. That's a big goal for us as a team to get that win."
Keselowski has finished no better than ninth at Indianapolis. Logano led 10 laps and finished fifth last year, which followed an eighth-place finish in his first trip to IMS with Penske in 2013.
"The Brickyard is the only race [Penske] hasn't won and he really, really wants it," Logano said. "Believe me. We talk about it a lot at Team Penske about how bad Roger wants it and what we've got to do to try to win that race."
But the fact is that momentum and history will mean little this weekend. The race this year at Indianapolis features a huge unknown as teams enter with a rules package that they have never raced. NASCAR created the package in hopes that drivers can draft and slingshot past one another much like IndyCars at the track.
Drivers are a little skeptical that their twice-as-heavy machines can operate like an IndyCar. But they will have nearly five hours of practice Friday to try to figure it out with 9-inch spoilers that have a 1-inch wicker bill at the top.
"There's always pressure on us [at Indy], I don't know that it is any more," Wolfe said. "The biggest thing right now is trying to understand what this new package they're throwing at us here, how that is all going to work out and see who is going to adapt and pick up on it quick."
The new wrinkle means that while the team might have worked hard, there is only so much they can do prior to this weekend in trying to get Penske that win. Wolfe said he has confidence in his engineers that "hopefully we can figure it out" so the organization can celebrate.
The drivers will try to give as much feedback as possible.
"All we can do is prepare the best way we know how and expect the unexpected -- be ready for change, be ready for anything. ... When there's a rule change early like that it's a heckuva an opportunity to try to make something happen," Logano said.
Some teams tested the high drag package recently at Chicagoland Speedway but Penske teams have not spent a lot of on-track time with it. The team arrived at the track Friday with basically wind tunnel and computer simulation data that dictated the setup.
"The feedback that I have is that it was hard to tell when they did the test at Chicago," Penske said. "I can't tell you anything that is positive or negative. Hey, shake it up and let's see what comes out of the bottle."
Keselowski has virtually the same attitude and expectation as Penske:
"They're going to drop the green and we're going to all find out together," Keselowski said.
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