{"id":517741,"date":"2026-03-06T08:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T08:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/517741\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T08:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T08:09:08","slug":"kevin-harvick-singles-out-penske-as-team-to-watch-heading-into-phoenix-nascar-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/517741\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Harvick singles out Penske as team to watch heading into Phoenix NASCAR weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>23XI Racing has undoubtedly been the best team three races into the 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/pro\/category\/nascar\/news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series season. Tyler Reddick made NASCAR history by becoming the first driver to win the first three races of a season and Bubba Wallace sits second in the points standings. With a trip to Phoenix Raceway on deck, all eyes now turn to Team Penske. <\/p>\n<p>For FOX Sports analyst Kevin Harvick, his main focus is on the Penske duo of Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano. They are two of the best to do it at Phoenix and when it comes to Blaney specifically, Harvick can\u2019t see a scenario where he\u2019s not in contention on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Ryan Blaney is gonna be tough to beat. He had a ton of speed this weekend, he\u2019s been good at every race,\u201d Harvick said on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JeSWOvGOng8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Happy Hour<\/a>. \u201cPenske cars have typically been pretty good there from the 12 standpoint. The 22\u2019s been hit or miss [and] the 2 [Austin Cindric], I can\u2019t ever tell where they are as far as what they have going on. <\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026 Team Penske, in general, has been really good at Phoenix. I believe Blaney\u2019s going to lead the way from a speed standpoint, so I expect him to be in contention. I wouldn\u2019t surprise me if Joey Logano shows up and is in contention but could run 15th, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Team Penske will be tough to beat at Phoenix<\/p>\n<p>Blaney has one win in 20 starts at Phoenix, it coming this past November in the 2025 season finale. Blaney has an average finish of 10.9 at the racetrack, third-best among active drivers. He\u2019s finished as the runner-up in four of the last seven races at Phoenix dating back to 2022. <\/p>\n<p>Blaney knows his way around Phoenix well, as does Logano. The three-time Cup champion has four wins at Phoenix, most among active drivers. <\/p>\n<p>Both *should* be in contention at Phoenix based on recent history. But with the season opening up at a pair of superspeedway and a road course, it\u2019s hard to know for sure where each team is at on speed. It should make for an interesting 500 miles in the desert. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"23XI Racing has undoubtedly been the best team three races into the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. Tyler&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-517741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517741","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=517741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}