Team Penske had all three of its drivers finish inside the top 10 Saturday night in the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway.
Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano all finished among the first 10 finishers in the 19th race of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.
“It’s not a win,” said Blaney, who finished second. “It’s a positive, that’s for sure. I hate it. I thought we were in a good spot there restarting fourth and (winner) Martin (Truex Jr.) struggled a little bit the first couple laps and I thought I could get by him, but just couldn’t quite get a run on him.
“His car came in and mine kind of faded a little bit and he won the race. That stunk. I thought we had a shot at it tonight, but I’m really proud of the gains we made all race though, to be honest with you.”
Keselowski was shooting for his fourth Kentucky win but settled for third behind Truex Jr. and Blaney. He had to overcome a pit road speeding penalty but tipped his cap to crew chief Paul Wolfe for a late race two tire pit call that gave Keselowski track position.
“It was a good call from my crew chief, Paul Wolfe,” Keselowski said. “We had better speed than we’ve had at the mile-and-a-halves, but not enough to run with the 78 (Truex Jr.).
“He eventually got by us there and I thought we might have had a shot at it if we could have restarted fourth there, but we kind of cycled back to sixth and it wasn’t enough to be able to make something happen there. All in all, a decent day.”
The performance in Kentucky provided a needed shot of optimism for the three car team as the regular season winds down and looks for improvement.
“I hope so,” Blaney said. “That’s really all you can hope for, but you never know. The 78, he kind of dominated the night. They had a really great race car and they did a good job. They’ve done that all year. We’ve just got to keep working hard like we all have been at Team Penske and just keep trying to close that gap until we dominate races and we lead a bunch of laps. Hopefully we get there soon.”
