{"id":106181,"date":"2025-08-29T20:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/106181\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T20:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:18:07","slug":"kevin-harvick-puts-nascar-cup-field-on-watch-ahead-of-penske-playoff-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/106181\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Harvick puts NASCAR Cup field on watch ahead of Penske playoff run"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s playoff season in the NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series. It should come as no surprise that Team Penske is trending up with the 10-race postseason getting underway with this Sunday\u2019s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.<\/p>\n

Ryan Blaney took the checkered flag in this past Saturday\u2019s regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway. Joey Logano had one of the best cars in the field until he wrecked from the lead late in the race. As it seems to be every year, the racetracks line up perfectly for Penske in the playoffs. Penske has won all three championships in the Next Gen era, and Kevin Harvick fancies them again. <\/p>\n

\u201cHere we go again \u2014 Penske winning the race before the playoffs,\u201d Harvick said on Tuesday\u2019s Happy Hour<\/a> podcast. \u201cI look at those playoffs and the way they line up out there is just good for Penske. \u2026 They\u2019ve run better the last month. Blaney\u2019s been solid all year, and he brought it up today on the interview \u2014 they had a miserable start to the season. So, the fact they got back up to second in the standings and were able to win their second race at Daytona, shows you the speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, Penske drivers have won their way into the playoffs before hitting a different level once they get there. This year has been a little different, at least for Blaney. Even with a series-leading seven DNFs, the 2023 Cup champion still found a way to finish second in the regular season points standings.<\/p>\n

Can Team Penske do it again?<\/p>\n

Blaney enters the postseason as the No. 4 seed, while his teammates, Logano and Austin Cindric, don\u2019t have as much wiggle room. Cindric is the No 10 seed, Logano the No. 12 seed. Four drivers will be eliminated after the Round of 16; Logano is confident he won\u2019t be one of them.<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s an odd year. All three of Logano\u2019s championships have come in an even year. Winning a fourth championship would place him in a tie for second-most all-time alongside\u00a0Jeff Gordon. He knows that would \u201cpiss some people off<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019d really piss some people off, wouldn\u2019t it?\u201d Logano told\u00a0Kelly Crandall\u00a0of\u00a0ESPN<\/a>. \u201cFour would be incredible. Three was definitely special, and it does put you in a pretty elite group. I guess sometimes in self-reflecting a little bit, when you look at the end of your career and you say you have three championships, are you going to be happy? That\u2019s something to be pretty proud of. I\u2019m not going to be upset about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still also going to be the person to say, \u2018Boy, I missed out on like four or five that I should have won,\u2019 and still frustrated about that. Yeah, I don\u2019t look too far ahead to what [four] would be, but gosh, it would be great. There\u2019s always room for more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s playoff season in the NASCAR Cup Series. It should come as no surprise that Team Penske is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-106181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}