Penske celebrates second consecutive owners' title

"It's obvious the Nationwide (Series) means so much to us because it's the proving ground," said the 77-year-old Penske. "It's the testing ground for our crew chiefs, young drivers. And there's no question, when you see Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson and the people who come up through that series, it means a lot to us, but it also ‑‑ the mechanics and the over-the-wall guys that we train there."

Last season, Penske's No. 22 prevailed in the season-long team owner championship hunt by just one point over the Gibbs No. 54. This year, the Team Penske entry prevailed with a larger margin, but an equally diverse cast of drivers in the seat.

Former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski piloted the No. 22 to five victories in his 11 starts, and Ryan Blaney notched one win among his 10 appearances behind the wheel. Joey Logano (nine starts), Alex Tagliani (two) and Michael McDowell (one) shared the rest of the driving duties. The common thread was crew chief Jeremy Bullins, who kept strong performances a constant while adapting to several different drivers.

"I'm proud to be a part of it," Keselowski said. "It's a season-long task, so it's not a one-night accomplishment, it's a lot of different things. Quite a few different drivers in this car and I'm honored to be one of them. I feel like I contributed to the program, I don't know, but it's a lot of fun and the team does a great job. You kind of take these things for granted sometimes, having great cars and great teams, and I'm trying not to. It's a very pleasurable experience. I've been at the other side of this where I didn't have great cars and life was really tough, but we've had a season of great cars and I'm thankful for that."

Busch and Sam Hornish Jr. shared the seat of the Gibbs No. 54 this season, with Busch notching seven victories and Hornish one. Although placing as a runner-up in Saturday's race and in the team owner standings was bittersweet, Busch was pleased with the overall effort.

"It's been fun the last couple of years," Busch said. "You know we've come up short just a little bit last year by one point, a little bit more than that this year, but, shoot, besides winning more races, finishing every single race in the top four besides (Daytona), I don't know what else I could have done. We did our part and we had some great races, and we did have a successful year, so nothing to hang our hats about, but there's one other guy or team out there that was a little bit better than us."

Said Gibbs: "Yeah, you've got to give them credit. The Penske group, you've got to give them a lot of credit and what they did there. They put a lot of drivers in the car and raced great. We had just a couple of bad situations that happened to us which cost us again. We don't like it, but we're committed to come back and try to go after it again. We appreciate getting an opportunity to race against real good race teams, and when you do that, you've got a chance to come out on the short end. Like I said, we love the series. We're going to be back next year roaring."

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