Hendrick Motorsports closed the gap to Team Penske, while Joe Gibbs Racing was not as strong at the 1-mile track.
LOUDON, N.H. — As Ryan Blaney celebrated his New Hampshire victory Sunday, emotions varied on pit road among his competitors.
For teammate Joey Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe, the reality was setting in on how challenging this round could be with visits to Kansas and the Charlotte Roval before the 12-driver playoff field is trimmed to eight.
Joe Gibbs Racing had a bigger issue than Denny Hamlin’s contact that wrecked Ty Gibbs — how to beat Team Penske’s cars at a short flat track with the championship a little more than a month away at Phoenix, a track similar to New Hampshire.
For regular-season champion William Byron and crew chief Rudy Fugle, Sunday’s race was a step forward after many difficulties at this track but a key test loomed this weekend at Kansas for Byron and his Hendrick Motorsports teammates.
While Blaney’s victory moved him into the next round, Logano faces a more challenging path despite a fourth-place finish that put him 24 points above the cutline.
As the reigning Cup champion, Wolfe had first pick among the Penske teams on which Goodyear tire test he wanted this season. He choose the July session at New Hampshire. They were already good at New Hampshire — and Phoenix — but Wolfe wanted to make sure they held their advantage at both tracks even with Logano winning two of the last three races at Phoenix to claim championships.
But not winning Sunday, means that Logano has to win either of the next two races or advance via points. Although Logano won at Texas, a 1.5-mile track, in May, Wolfe admits they’ve not been as strong at most 1.5-mile tracks like Kansas.
“Kansas is, for sure, a concern for us,” Wolfe told NBC Sports after Sunday’s race at New Hampshire. “Just looking at it realistically, we just don’t have the speed on the mile-and-a-halves with Joey. It will be a challenge (at Kansas). We did well (at New Hampshire), and hopefully we can just try to go there and not make any mistakes and not put ourselves in a bad spot as we go to the Roval, which I feel like we can hold our own at the Roval.”
Logano was eliminated from last year’s playoffs at the Roval — until Alex Bowman’s car was disqualified in post-race inspection. That put Logano back into the playoffs. He won the following week at Las Vegas in the round of 8 to advance to the title race and won that to claim the championship.
That success by Team Penske at Phoenix — the organization has won the past three championships there — has forced other teams, particularly Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports to invest deeply in getting better at Phoenix.
Work remains after Sunday’s race at New Hampshire that saw Penske cars (including Josh Berry in an affiliate car with Wood Brothers Racing) take three of the top four spots and lead 90% of the race.
“I think the biggest thing you’ve got to take away from (Sunday) is with this aero package, with the same tire as Phoenix at a 1-mile racetrack, the Penske cars are completely untouchable again,” Chris Gabehart, competition director at Joe Gibbs Racing, said after Sunday’s race.
“I know what it’s like to be untouchable. We’ve been fortunate enough to be on the right side of that, but the reality is we’ve got a lot of work to do with this package and that’s the focus.”
Joe Gibbs Racing had won the last three races at New Hampshire and had at least one car finish in the top two the previous 13 races there before Sunday. No JGR cars finished in the top five Sunday.
That’s not a good sign looking ahead to Phoenix. While Christopher Bell won the March race there and Hamlin finished second, the championship races has proven more difficult for the organization. Joe Gibbs Racing has not had a car finish in the top five at Phoenix in the past two championship races there.
Phoenix has been just as frustrating for Hendrick Motorsports. After watching a Team Penske driver win the title there for a third year in a row, Hendrick Motorsports Vice Chairman told NBC Sports last November: “This is not our best track, to be honest. … Those guys (Penske) don’t really show the speed until they really need to. That’s what we’ve got to figure out. Where are they find that? What are they doing different than what we’re doing to extract that and that’s what motivates us.”
Hendrick Motorsports placed all four of its cars in the top 10 in the March race at Phoenix, led by Kyle Larson’s third-place finish. Results at other tracks that hold some similarities to New Hampshire and Phoenix have been mixed.
Byron’s third-place finish Sunday was his first top-10 in eight Cup starts at New Hampshire. Chase Elliott finished fifth, marking the first time since September 2012 that Hendrick has had two cars place in the top five at New Hampshire.
“Huge, huge confidence to first, as tough as this place is, and then it’s just a big kick in the butt for all the hard work we’ve been doing since the shock … at Darlington,” Fugle said. “It gave everybody that chance to go work on our stuff and its’ starting to prove out. We’re not there yet, but it’s starting to prove out.”
While Darlington and Kansas are distinct, there are similarities. Hendrick Motorsports did not have a car finish better than 17th at Darlington in the playoff opener, raising concerns about the organization.
“We have to keep learning on our mistakes from Darlington, which we think we’ve done,” Fugle said, “but we’ve got to go prove it.”
Category: General Sports
