LOUDON, N.H. — The empire has struck back, so to speak.
With Joe Gibbs Racing sweeping the Round of 16 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs opening round — decisively — and opening the Round of 12 at a track at which it had won three straight, it appeared on paper that the Toyota powerhouse would be dining on seafood once again after Sunday’s Mobil 1 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Put away those bibs, boys, because race winner Ryan Blaney and Team Penske are a force of nature.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos
The “Star Wars” superfan Blaney and his pole-winning, New England native teammate Joey Logano combined to collect both stage wins, the race win and 263 laps led at the “Magic Mile,” with the closely aligned Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry landing P2 with 10 laps led of his own. Austin Cindric, also chasing a championship in the No. 2 Penske Ford, struggled a bit throughout the weekend but rallied back for his best Loudon finish since his rookie season of 2022.
“Massive props to all of Team Penske, Wood Brothers. Really great job leading up to this race and preparing for practice, qualifying and the race car’s really fast. And as a whole company, that’s something they should really be proud of,” Blaney said in his post-race press conference. “I’m just in the fortunate situation I get to drive a fast race car, you know? But, yeah, it speaks volumes of the hard work that they’ve done. And I think for us to run first, Josh run second with Joey fourth with a stage win, like, that’s a great day. And so yeah, just huge, huge props to them. And couldn’t be prouder of them. And it’s nice to be able to capitalize on having such guys.”
All the talk leading into Saturday’s on-track action was, understandably, Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing’s manhandling of the playoff field in the postseason’s first three races. Coming to Loudon, where Toyota had won all three races, all six stages and led 83% of the laps at New Hampshire in the Next Gen era to follow? Forget about it.
But that wasn’t how the Penske shop saw it, and that was not at all how it played out.
“Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at Loudon, you expect us to run well, and overall, it was a solid weekend, right? A pole, a race win, two stage wins, if you look at Team Penske as a whole there, so that’s a good day,” the two-time NHMS winner and Connecticut product Logano said on pit road after his third straight top five.
“… overall, I‘m proud of the execution. We obviously got a ton of points today. I think we got a second and a first in the first two stages and a top-four finish, so we did what we needed to do. We‘re plus to the cutline. I‘d rather win. That‘s just the greed in me, especially when it‘s home.”
No. 22 crew chief Paul Wolfe told NASCAR.com on Saturday — before practice and qualifying, when Logano put his Ford on the pole, mind you — that he saw “no reason to think we shouldn‘t be a contender tomorrow.” It certainly helped that Logano was one of just three drivers to test here in July.
Wolfe’s confidence was backed up — and then some.
“Well, I knew this was going to be a strong track for us, like I said yesterday, with the test and what we’re able to come up with there. Obviously, it played out today just like that, which was nice to see,” the championship-winning crew chief told NASCAR.com on pit road following the race. “Obviously, we had the best cars here, and I’m glad one of our cars got the win and we scored a lot of points. We were in contention all day, and go out of here with a good bit above the cutline. So not the win that obviously we want, but as good a spot, as you could say, aside from winning, as we head to Kansas. … There’s no mistakes. We’re operating at a high level right now.”
On the flip side, what exactly happened to Toyota? The results sheet will still show the three JGR drivers landing inside the top 12 — not catastrophic by any means — but seeing Penske flat-out dominate while “Magic Mile” masters Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin combine for exactly zero laps led, with the 23XI Racing playoff drivers Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace not even cracking the top 20 has to be disheartening. Especially after Bell was also one of the three drivers to test at Loudon.
And especially because the championship will be decided at Phoenix Raceway, a similarly flat 1-mile track that Penske has had dialed in for three straight titles, split between Logano (two) and Blaney.
“I think the biggest thing you’ve got to take away from today is, with this aero package, with the same tire as Phoenix at a 1-mile race track, the Penske cars are completely untouchable again,” JGR competition director Chris Gabehart said. “So, 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 got a lot of work to do with this package, and that’s the focus.
“While this is the aero package and the tire we’ll run at Phoenix, this is not Phoenix. It’s Loudon. And they have different race track tendencies. And when we were at Phoenix, the last time they were on the other side of the race track, and when we finished the race, we finished first. So you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater here. But the reality is, it’s playoff season, and here come the yellow cars, with subpar metrics along the way, but those guys know how to get it done when it counts. And, you know, we’ll just have to race them the rest of the year and see how it goes, I guess.”
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