The Team Penske tandem of Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski could be in trouble.
Likely too low on the Chase Grid to advance to the four-driver Championship Round race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on points, the two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers in all likelihood must either win at Texas or Phoenix to keep their respective championship aspirations alive.
Logano (-28 points below the cutoff line) and Keselowski (-24 points) get their first chance at a win in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET on NBC).
Their trip to the Lone Star State might also be their best chance to visit Victory Lane. Kevin Harvick has taken the checkered flag in the last four races at Phoenix and has shown no signs of slowing down there, making Texas as close to “must-win” as it gets.
“We’re going to tap into the Penske ethos of ‘Effort equals Results’ and see what happens,” said Keselowski, who has finished in the top five in his last two starts at Texas. “Our program is in a good place right now, though I want to be a little faster on the mile-and-a-halves for sure. Historically, Texas has been good for us, so we know we can find the speed that we need to run up front there and ideally position ourselves to make it to the next round.”
Both Keselowski and Logano showed speed in last Sunday’s opening Eliminator Round race at Martinsville, running first and second the majority of the race. Logano’s 207 laps led paced all drivers, followed by Keselowski’s 143 laps led. But, Keselowski finished 32nd following an accident that forced him to the garage for some time. Logano placed 37th after a wreck with the No. 20 car of Matt Kenseth. On Tuesday, NASCAR suspended Kenseth for two races, deeming the wreck intentional. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver appealed the suspension, but it was upheld by the National Motorsports Appeals Panel Thursday afternoon. Kenseth has appealed to the Final Appeals Officer, who will hear testimony starting Thursday at 1 p.m. ET.
“It’s just unfortunate that our race had to end that way,” said an agitated Logano. “I got wrecked. There isn’t much else to say about it. I don’t know what am I supposed to say about it. His (Kenseth’s) race was over and he tried hard to wreck us and he was successful the second time, so I give that to him.”
Logano knows how to win at Texas. He took the checkered flag at the 1.5-mile track in April of last season and has finished in the top five in four of his last five starts there. The No. 22 Ford driver also leads the Sprint Cup Series with six victories, including three in his last four races.
“We’ll go to Texas and try to win,” Logano said after Martinsville. “We’re on a heckuva run. We were still leading this race and we were going to win it. We had a really, really fast Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion. We’re not gonna let this take us down. This is a strong team. We will get past this.”
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