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NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski secured a Cup Series Championship for Team Penske in 2012, the first in 40 years for team owner, Roger Penske. The current Roush-Fenway Keselowski driver talked about the somber reaction of his former team's owner when he secured the title more than a decade ago.
Speaking in an interview with New York Times in November 2012, the 2010 Xfinity Series champion said that Penske is not an emotional person (via NYT):
"If you opened up Webster’s and said show me a picture of someone who is stoic, it would be Roger Penske. So to define what it means to him is difficult at best because he’s not going to wear his heart on his sleeve."
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However, once enough familiarity is gained with the team owner, his more understated reactions are understandable, said Keselowski, who had worked with the Mooresville-based team for three years at the point of his championship win. Keselowski did state that he did get the sense that the win was meaningful to Roger Penske, saying:
"But I think when you’re around him, you get to know him, he becomes comfortable around you, that you can see little things in him, so then you know when something counts. And it’s hard because I don’t ever like to answer for people about how they feel, and I’m going to violate that by saying that it meant a lot to him. Because his demeanor, his body language, looked to me as though it was something that was perhaps life-changing."
As of 2024, Team Penske has secured five championship wins, but the first one came four decades after the team's entry into the Cup Series, speaking about the relief in that moment for the team owner, Keselowski said:
"You know that you could feel this weight off his shoulders in a sense, when I was around him. Maybe that was just the pressure of the moment, or maybe it was a lifelong goal."
Penske's most recent addition to his Cup Series championships came at the hands of Joey Logano this past season. Logano scored 5040 points after winning four races, and securing seven top fives, and 13 top 10s.
Roger Penske said he had no target for number of championships
After Brad Keselowski's title-winning race at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, getting Roger Penske the trophy he was missing for so many years, the team owner talked about having no target in mind for championship wins. Although he's up to five now, at the time of the first win, Penske was asked if he was satisfied with his first Cup Series title.
Talking to the press in November 2012, Penske's response was (via NYT):
“As far as me personally, I guess I’m going to come to the races for as long as I can. I don’t have a deadline; I don’t have a number. I guess at this particular point, this racing keeps me young. My number is one I don’t talk about. But I need a couple more championships, sure.”
Defending champion Joey Logano has been responsible for most of Roger Penske's "couple more championships", as he has brought home the title thrice for the 87-year-old owner, with wins at the end of the 2018, 2022, and 2024 seasons.
