NASCAR Cup Series

The offseason wasn't a vacation

Published Feb. 9, 2010 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Hey NASCAR fans! The guys at FOXSports.com have given me this space to provide you with a behind-the-scenes look at my first full season as a member of Penske Racing.

Running the NASCAR Cup Series and Nationwide Series full-time is going to be big challenge, but I have a great team behind me. I know that a lot of drivers and crew members took vacations during the offseason, but I chose to stick around Mooresville, N.C., to get ready for the 2010 season.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the beach, but I had to get my priorities straight. This is the biggest season of my racing career. Roger Penske has handed me the No. 12 Penske Dodge in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series as well as the No. 22 Discount Tire/Ruby Tuesday Dodge in the Nationwide Series. Those are some dream rides, man! I want to make sure that we start the season off on the right foot.

I’ve worked hard all my life to get to this point. Penske Racing is a first-class organization that has the people, facilities, sponsors and manufacturer support to compete for championships. The challenge for me is to quickly gel with my new crew chiefs and crews. That is the reason that I chose to spend my offseason around the shop.

Jay Guy is my new Cup crew chief, and Paul Wolfe is my new Nationwide crew chief. We share a lot of the same qualities, and I am excited to work with them. We’re all new to Penske Racing, and we’ve all done more with less in our careers. We’ve done a lot of offseason testing at places like Texas World Speedway, Disney World Speedway and the half-mile oval at Rockingham. Communication is as important as anything in racing. Some driver-crew chief combinations have years of experience together. We’re trying to get to that point in a matter of months.

A question I’m asked a lot is, “What will make this a successful season?” The answer has several parts. In the Cup Series, we definitely want to challenge for a position in the Chase, but this year is part of a larger plan for the No. 12 team. We just want to show continued improvement throughout the season. If we can do that, we will be fine. In the Nationwide Series, we are going for a championship. I’ve got a teammate in Justin Allgaier who won Rookie of the Year in 2009 and finished sixth in points. It would be so cool to get Roger Penske his first NASCAR championship.

This weekend is my first Daytona 500 and it’s a moment that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Every young race car driver visualizes what it would be like to start the Daytona 500 and now my opportunity is here. All of the Penske Dodges qualified well and I’m ready to see how they draft. The Shootout looked like it was a lot of fun – pretty wild at times – and the new restrictor plate seems to make passing a lot easier.

So check back in here to find out what the team and I are getting into this season. It’s going to be a fun ride.

See you in Victory Lane!