Team Penske still lags behind Hendrick group, but making progress

I think it is obvious to everyone so far this year the Hendrick cars and the Hendrick-affiliated teams have really fast race cars week in and week out. I believe that Team Penske has taken over the No. 2 spot behind the Hendrick group because both of their drivers, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, have sure been up front a lot this year.

Brad sat on the pole for last Sunday’s race at Dover. He did have a fast race car, plus finished second. While winner Jimmie Johnson led a staggering 272 of the 400 laps, Brad only led one lap. Joey started third and finished eighth. Combined, the No. 2 Ford driven by Keselowski and the No. 22 Ford driven by Loagno have posted three wins, eleven top-five and 13 top-10 finishes. Brad’s second-place finish at the Monster Mile allowed him to move into eighth in the points while Joey also moved up one spot to sixth.

I know that in his post-race comments Brad said he thought he might have had something for Jimmie, but I honestly don’t believe he did. Truth be told, I don’t think anybody had anything for Jimmie on Sunday. If he really wanted to, I think Jimmie could have put the hammer down and been in his own zip code. It was going to take some kind of freak accident or a mistake on pit road to keep the No. 48 out of Victory Lane for his record ninth Dover win.

Jimmie was easily the class of the field. I caught myself a couple times while watching Jimmie race and saying to myself that he really was just playing with the field. When you give a great race car driver a great race car and, oh by the way, it’s at a track he loves, he just makes it look that much easier. Trust me I’ve seen it firsthand with Darrell Waltrip back when he drove and I saw it again Sunday with Jimmie Johnson. So that’s two wins in a row for the No. 48 Chevrolet team and I believe we’ll see a lot more wins come their way this year.

In the meantime, that leaves Team Penske with a little catching up to do. But not too much, as the cars driven by Keselowski and Logano have flashed their own fair share of speed this season.