By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
The Pennzoil 400 presented by Shell at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was what Team Penske needed as Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski finished in the top-10.
The weekend started on the right foot when Blaney qualified on the pole position on Friday afternoon. Throughout the race, the Penske Fords were a strong contingent in the top-10.
Blaney was the highest finishing driver from Team Penske in the fifth position. Blaney felt that his strongest run was before the final green flag stop of the day. Blaney hopes the momentum carries through the rest of the West Coast Swing and the season.
“I thought it was a solid day for us. We had a pretty decent Ford all day. The first run we weren’t great and we got better. I thought our strongest run was right before the last green flag pit stops. We lost a little speed the last run there,” Blaney stated.
“Overall it was a good weekend for us. That is what we need to do, just have good, consistent weekends like that. Hopefully we can do the same for the rest of this west coast swing and the rest of the season. We will see.”
During the race, Keselowski did not have the long run speed, but short run speed. Despite struggling during the long runs, he was able to salvage a sixth-place finish.
“We had really good short run speed and I thought we would be really good on the long runs today but it turned out we were really good on the short runs. That wasn’t at all what I was expecting. The short run speed was really strong but I just couldn’t get anywhere to capitalize on it,” Keselowski stated.
During the final pit stop of the day, Logano’s crew chief, Todd Gordon, used strategy to take two tires in hopes of another caution. However, the caution did not fall for the team to reset and gain the positions lost on the track.
Outside of the final pit stop, Logano was proud of how hard the No. 22 team worked throughout the race.
“Overall we have been solid with the Pennzoil Ford all season. That was a solid race. Pit crew did a good job. We have okay speed in the car. We aren’t anywhere close to the 4 but we are competitive with the rest,” Logano stated. “We will keep working toward that. It is a decent start for us and I think we are second in points. We are running hard and running strong right now. We just have to find a bit more to be able to beat Kevin.”
Logano sits second in the points three points behind points leader, Kevin Harvick. Blaney sits third in the points, four points behind Harvick. Keselowski sits seventh in the standings, 36 points back.