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.

"Sooner or later it's got to turn around -- it has to, because you can't have that kind of luck forever," Hornish said, smiling, on Saturday afternoon after final practice. "We've got a lot of making-up to do, but I feel like the more I get accustomed to these cars, the more I can sit back, driving at 90 percent and tell them what the car's doing throughout practices to get it better for the race. That's what we need to keep doing."

Engineers' stock in trade is eliminating surprises. So Geisler's not surprised at what Hornish has reaped so far this season from pulling back just that minor amount.

"There are some things on the team that I don't think I handled well last year," Geisler said. "I think at times I was maybe a little too aggressive trying to get too much out of the car and trying to make our team better and improve; and I just needed to be a little bit more patient with what we have as a group.

"We're a real young group. If you look around, I'd say we're probably the youngest group of guys, though the whole ranks: race engineer, myself -- where a lot of us are 30 or under. So that's pretty rare in the Cup garage, I think.

"Harnessing that energy is the key and having a little patience -- because you know how young people are -- and we're working on it."

Geisler is 29 and has been the crew chief for Hornish, who's just 30 himself, for 49 of the former two-time IndyCar champion's 74 Cup races.

He's ready for the change to continue.

"For us, I see [2010] as a little bit of a continuation of what we tried to get going last year," Geisler said. "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."

In mid-summer, Hornish looked like he was really hitting his stride, scoring four of his seven career top-10 finishes in a 10-race stretch between New Hampshire in June and Richmond in September. Typically though, those finishes were sandwiched around accident DNFs at Chicagoland and Watkins Glen, the latter particularly devastating as he was again an innocent bystander.

The potential keeps Geisler focused, and hopeful of a more stable streak of results ensuing this season.

"That's really been our focus over the winter, instead of trying to finish fifth, let's try to finish 15th every week," Geisler said. "And likely, if you're in that ballpark you're going to be able to take advantage of it and finish just a little bit better.

"But if you've only got a 20th-place car, run 20th with it for a while. I think that's one thing that Sam has really taken hold of this year, and not tried to force the issue as much. We didn't make the highlight reel at California for being sideways off the corner at any point -- and that's a good thing for us.

"That's what we need, is good, stable runs. We had a pit road penalty [at Fontana] and still managed to come back and get a good run out of it."

Geisler credited some new-found team unity created by driver Brad Keselowski, who joined the team with three races to go last season, and his crew chief Jay Guy, who was new to Penske at the beginning of 2010.

"I think that our whole company is stepping forward," Geisler said. "Having Kurt [Busch] around is good, having Brad is good and we've got some good, positive motivation from the guys around us. I think that [Busch's crew chief] Steve [Addington], Jay and I are working really well together as far as getting along really well."

The only thing left for Hornish is to continue to put up positive numbers.

"We need to start doing something different, to make sure we don't use our good luck up on anything else and bring any more bad luck upon us," Hornish said. "I don't really know what it is, I don't know how to change it and I don't feel we've yet changed it.

"We just need to make sure we take care of everything mechanically on the car and that I do everything that I can to make sure we get to the end of the races and keep out of those problems, and sooner or later, it's all going to change.

"Everybody sees it, but the thing that's frustrating for us at times is that a year ago, we didn't know if we could go up there and run in the top 10 and lead races and stuff. Now we know we can do those things and it's just not happening, so it's almost more frustrating now because we know we can do it and it's just not happening."

But it could happen Sunday.

"I think you just get on a roll, the better you do in practice carries into qualifying and then you start up front" said Hornish, who'll start 14th on Sunday. "Then, if the car's off, you go back to 20th -- you don't go a lap down. Everything just flows a little bit better, the more you get on that roll, the more it just continues to happen."