LAS VEGAS -- Travis Geisler's a Cup Series crew chief, a former dirt tracker and a trained engineer. At Penske Racing, solutions and strategies are his forte. So is committed hard work, leading what he calls "the youngest group of guys" in the Cup garage.

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For us, I see [2010] as a little bit of a continuation of what we tried to get going last year. I think you saw some top-fives and some top-10s out of us, at times, that were really good, legitimate runs for us -- where we felt like we were competitive all day.

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-- TRAVIS GEISLER

So when he got sick of people consoling him for his team, and its driver Sam Hornish Jr.'s "bad racing luck" last season -- in fact for two years running -- Geisler looked for a solution and a strategy to change the trend.

Hornish, in an unofficial tabulation annually produced by USA Today, was involved in 20 accidents in 36 races last season and according to the newspaper's stats led the Cup Series in crashes in his 2008 rookie season.

Hornish kicked off 2010 looking like the monkey on his back had expanded to a gorilla's dimension. While running third in his Daytona 500 qualifier, his car's engine broke with less than five laps to go and he had to start in the rear. Less than 10 laps into the race he was collected when Penske teammate Brad Keselowski had a tire problem.

But since then, Hornish has practiced better, qualified eighth at Fontana before finishing 16th, on the lead lap and then came to Las Vegas. Hornish was second in Friday's practice, was disappointed to qualify only 14th but then was 10th and 14th in Saturday's two practices.

Geisler said Hornish's increased restraint has "absolutely" led to him diminishing the number of on-track incidents he's involved in that a casual observer might write-off to bad luck.

"With racing luck, it is what it is but there's part of it that you make on your own," Geisler said. "Winning at blackjack is luck, but there's some skill involved, too -- so we can't say all those bad finishes were because we had bad luck and we can't do anything about it.

"What you have to do is look at it and say 'what can we do about this to fix it? Because it doesn't happen to everybody -- it seems to happen more to us. So let's figure out what we're doing wrong as a group.'"

The 2010 Cup season is only two races old, but so far there seems to be a marked change in Hornish, and his results. But when Hornish ticks off the ridiculous things that happened to his team last year -- some self-induced, some inadvertent -- you're not sure he's convinced. (Continued)