Roger Penske celebrated his 60 years in motorsport at the NASCAR/ IndyCar Double Header in Phoenix and his teams delivered.
In IndyCar Team Penske took the Pole and the win for the Good Rancher 250 on Saturday , while Joey Logano Grabbed the Pole for the NASCAR race making the sweep still a possibility.
Sunday morning Joey led the field to green, but it was Ryan Blaney that won the first stage keeping hope alive. During the 2nd stage Christopher Bell picked up where had done in past Phoenix races by leading the most laps and winning Stage 2.
During stage 3, on lap 217 Joey Logano and Ross Chastain made contact on a lap 217 restart that initiated a multicar wreck just past the dogleg after the start/finish line and collected Anthony Alfredo, Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindric, who took a hard hit into the outside retaining wall. “The restarts get crazy here, and I’m not really sure what happened other than just cars jumping right across the race track,” Cindric said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever jumped head-on into a wall, but that changed today. It’s just a shame. I’m not discouraged. This 2 team has shown me a lot in the first four races, but it’s just a shame we don’t have the results for them. We got points in both stages and were in desperate need of a race finish without a crash, and we did not get that today. It’s a shame because I felt like we did all the right things throughout the afternoon, so that’s racing.”
But it was the man with the big mustache that got into clean air to take the win and help give Roger the best anniversary gift with a sweep of both poles and both races on the 60 Anniversary of Team Penske.
Christopher Bell came in 2nd after leading the most laps. “A few more laps, I probably would have got there,” Bell said on pit road post-race, “but I held him off on two tires so he wasn’t going to be an easy pass either way. So just … it’s a bummer. He made the call, Adam made the call for four tires, and I was in total agreeance whenever he made that decision. I’m like, ‘Yeah, absolutely, I’ll be able to get back up through there.’ Then whenever so many cars took two (tires) and we had that immediate yellow. That was a bummer. Ultimately, it was a day that we needed to get out of here with a lot of stage points, a great finish. Just really, really, really stinks to let them get away whenever they’re that close.”
Story by Chuck Null
Photos by Betty and Ralph Garica
