NASCAR Cup Series

Joey Logano treasures relationship with Team Penske IndyCar teammates

Published May. 27, 2016 4:14 p.m. ET

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Racing is the common language spoken at Team Penske -- and there are no race weekends any bigger than this one for the organization, which fields the combined total of six full-time drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the Verizon IndyCar Series.

In the span of about 12 hours this Sunday, legendary owner Roger Penske will cheer on his four IndyCar drivers in the Indianapolis 500 and then keep tabs on his two Sprint Cup drivers as they compete in the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR's longest race.

Joey Logano, who will start on the front row of the Coke 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, said he and Brad Keselowski, Team Penske's other Sprint Cup driver, are closer with their IndyCar counterparts than some might realize. 

"We do quite a few things together as Team Penske teammates," Logano said of Penske IndyCar drivers Helio Castroneves, Will Power, Juan Pablo Montoya and Simon Pagenaud. "Even though they're completely different series, the shop is still connected to our shop. The NASCAR shop is connected to the Indy shop, and a lot of the resources are shared. We talk a lot."

After being located in Reading, Pa., for more than three decades, the Penske IndyCar operation relocated to the current company digs in Mooresville, N.C., in 2006. Team Penske's NASCAR operation already was housed there on a 105-acre campus.

Logano said the fact that Montoya spent seven seasons as a full-time driver on the NASCAR side in Sprint Cup has helped him forge a relationship with the IndyCar foursome.

"Obviously, I know Juan pretty well from when he was over here, and I've been able to build a relationship with Simon and Will and Helio," Logano said.

Logano said he's even been able to breach the language barrier that sometimes causes problems. Logano is a native of Middletown, Connecticut, while Castroneves hails from Brazil, Power is from Australia, Montoya from Colombia and Pagenaud from France.

"I don't know how anyone can't get along with Helio," said Logano, winner of last weekend's Sprint All-Star Race. "There are a lot of interesting personalities because none of them are from here, so trying to figure out what they're saying with their accents a lot of time is really hard for me to understand what they're saying.

"But we have fun. There are a lot of fun personalities to be around and it makes the Indy 500 more enjoyable for me, to be able to watch it, because you have those relationships with those guys and obviously success over there, a lot of times, helps the NASCAR side. We talk about momentum in general and that's another avenue where we can get more momentum."

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