NASCAR Cup Series

Busch, Keselowski teaming up to improve

Published Jun. 27, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

The Penske Racing pairing of Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski continues to pay dividends for both drivers.

Busch’s NASCAR Sprint Cup victory at Infineon Raceway on Sunday was the driver’s first win on a road course and the third win for Dodge on the 1.990-mile course in the last five years. For Penske Racing, it was the first time since 2008 that two of its Sprint Cup drivers were victorious in the same season.

Keselowski’s 10th-place finish at Infineon was a moral victory of sorts after finishing 35th on the road course last year. Considering that the best effort among the Penske drivers in the 2010 Sonoma race was Busch’s 32nd-place, Sunday's performance shows just how far the organization has come since the two drivers began working together late in the 2009 season.

Prior to Busch’s win, he had posted just three top-five finishes in 10 starts at Infineon. Although Busch finished second at fellow road course Watkins Glen International last August, his average finish of 20th in Sonoma was not a strong indication to be considered a contender entering the weekend.

However, Busch’s six top-five qualifying efforts, including a pole in 2006, were proof the driver could put down a competitive lap. Whether Busch could continue executing 110 competitive laps at Sonoma was the question. Until Sunday.

Busch’s car and two-pit-stop strategy was so solid that he was able to accelerate beyond the riff-raff and control the pace of the race.

“I’ve been a part of that chaos in the back over the years,” Busch said. “I’ve been hit by guys running fourth or fifth and it gives you a flat tire and you end up coming home 32nd.

“To have a car like we did, I had to protect it and I had to bring it on home for a good points day. I wanted to get that revenge of a win over those guys.”

Certainly, finishing second to Juan Pablo Montoya at Watkins Glen last summer was a huge boost to Busch’s road-course confidence. But more important, the ability to have a teammate such as Keselowski, who may have come into the program a little more green than Busch had liked but is driven to improve, will advance the program rather than hinder it.

Keselowski scored more points in Nationwide Series road-course races in 2010 than any other competitor, but there’s always room for improvement, particularly considering how stout the Sprint Cup field has become at Sonoma and Watkins Glen.

So Busch and Keselowski tested, along with Jacques Villeneuve, at Road Atlanta and Virginia International Raceway last week. At Road Atlanta, crew chief Steve Addington says Busch drove Keselowski around the circuit in a two-seater race car to offer assistance.

When the pair arrived at Sonoma, Busch made a lap with Keselowski in his rental car. Although Keselowski qualified 15th, he posted the fastest time in final practice and wrapped up the weekend with another top-10 finish.

The benefits from Busch’s teamwork with Keselowski are not lost on Penske Racing's senior driver.

“It’s a good feeling to know that the two teams are working together as well as they ever have, knowing that Brad is definitely maturing,” Busch said. “Seeing him bust off a top 10 at a road course is great.

“He went around the racetrack and I pointed out some of the apex points, exit points, shifting points and he absorbed it like a sponge. And that’s what it takes as a veteran of the team, to help the kid that’s coming up through. To have his information help us is exactly what has helped both teams get stronger.”

With Penske’s promotion of Paul Wolfe to Keselowski’s crew chief and moving Travis Geisler, who had been Sam Hornish’s crew chief, to racing competition director, there’s a synergy between the Nos. 2 and 22 teams that has not always existed in the past.

“Paul has great ideas,” said Addington, Busch's crew chief. “We sit down in each others offices for long periods of time and talk about the direction we need to go in. We go to lunch every single day of the week except maybe one and we talk about what direction we need to work in, what we need to work on, to make it better.

“You have to push for stuff. You go in there with a list that's this long; you have to pick out the major hitters to what we need to go fast right now. That's what we've done. It's great to have a guy over there that is a racer and wants to make our race cars better along with me. That's been the big key, we push for things that we need to go fast right now.”

With just 26 races in a season in which to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup- - and two of the those venues being road courses -- nothing can be taken for granted. An additional two wild-card spots are available for drivers outside the top 10, but inside the top 20, who have the most wins.

Keselowski, who won at Kansas Speedway but remains 22nd in the points standings, knows all too well that with 10 races remaining in the regular season his best shot of putting two Penske Racing cars in the Chase will be getting the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge into the top 20 in points in order to qualify for one of those two wild-card positions.

“I'm really proud of my guys,” Keselowski said. “To finish 10th on a road course is nothing to be disappointed about. I thought for a minute there we were going to get a top five; we just fell off a little bit at the end. I got caught up with all the traffic but still came out of here with a top 10. It's something I'm very proud of."

With continued progress, Busch and Keselowski could be the first Penske Racing drivers to both make the Chase since Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman in 2005. Then Dodge might have to change its slogan to “teamwork wins.”