Today’s question: Joey Logano won the NASCAR Cup Series championship last Sunday at Phoenix, giving Team Penske another title in 2024. The team also won season championships in the World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and Josef Newgarden earned the team’s unprecedented 20th victory in the Indianapolis 500. What was Team Penske’s best season?

Curt Cavin: You realize this is a nearly impossible question, like asking Santa which was his best Christmas. Since I’m leading off, I’ll start with one of the seasons that got this big Penske ball rolling. In 1972, the very hands-on Penske reached the top of his motorsports mountain by winning the “500” for the first time with close friend Mark Donohue at the wheel. The team also made its NASCAR debut that year – at Riverside with Donohue – and George Follmer won the Can-Am Series championship. As I’m focused some of the earlier years, I think RP would point to 1979 as Rick Mears won his first “500” from the pole and captured the first CART title ahead of teammate Bobby Unser. Late in that year, the team scored its first 1-2-3 finish (at Ontario with Unser, Mears and Mario Andretti) and Penske-built cars won 11 of the 14 races.

Eric Smith: As much as I want to showcase how dominant Team Penske has been across the board in all motorsport disciplines lately, I don’t want to be reckless with recency bias. That’s why I look to 30 years ago – 1994 – as the top Team Penske season. While it competed in just two series compared to several in 2024, I think how the drivers were showcased will go down as the best statistical years for the storied organization. Rusty Wallace competed in a single-car Team Penske NASCAR Cup Series entry and finished third to Dale Earnhardt, who won his seventh and final championship. Wallace led the Cup Series in wins (eight) and laps led (2,142) that year. In open-wheel, Team Penske boasted 12 wins in the 16-race season, including the prestigious Long Beach Grand Prix and a dominating Indianapolis 500 performance where Al Unser Jr. won from the pole position in a special Mercedes-Benz pushrod engine. Unser and teammate Emerson Fittipaldi, who finished 1-2 in points that season, combined to lead 193 of 200 laps that day. Paul Tracy won three races in 1994, including the final pair, finished third in points behind his teammates. Replicating a 20-win season in 47 premier races across NASCAR and the INDYCAR SERIES would be challenging.

Paul Kelly: Unlike Eric, I will show recency bias and say this year takes the biggest bite out of the cake of success for Team Penske. Sure, other seasons such as 1979 and 1994 have more dominant numbers than 2024, but Penske nearly ran the table with titles in all four premier series in which it competes, falling short only in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. And Scott McLaughlin and Will Power finished a close third and fourth, respectively, in that championship. Also remember Penske was the only team to end the season with two drivers in the top five. Plus, Team Penske finished 1-2 in the Cup Series standings for the first time and won the Cup title for the third straight year. The team’s Porsche 963 prototypes ruled global sports car racing. Oh, and Team Penske won two of the three biggest races in America – the Indianapolis 500 and Rolex 24 At Daytona. While all eras have great driving talent, what separates today from yesteryear is the technical depth of the fields in all series. Everyone has good equipment now, and series rules create parity instead of rewarding ingenuity. That makes it a hell of a lot harder to win today.