DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — There isn’t much that team owner Roger Penske hasn’t accomplished in auto racing.
He was an outstanding driver in the 1960s before he suddenly retired to begin his business career. He would arrive at the Indianapolis 500 as a team owner in 1969 and ended up in victory lane for the first time when Mark Donohue won the Indy 500 in 1972.
That was the first of his record 14 Indianapolis 500 wins, including Sam Hornish, Jr.’s thrilling win in 2006 when he edged Marco Andretti just a few hundred feet before the checkered flag.
No team owner in IndyCar racing history has won more championships, races, poles or accolades than Roger Penske.
But in NASCAR, Penske Racing was never able to live up to the high standards the IndyCar team had achieved.
There are no NASCAR Cup championships credited to Penske Racing. And when it came to winning big races, Roger Penske had been unable to score a win at his beloved Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the Brickyard 400 or in NASCAR’s greatest race of all, the Daytona 500.
That all changed Sunday night when his two drivers, Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch, teamed up to pass race-leading Tony Stewart on the backstretch on the final lap to finish 1-2 in the Daytona 500.
Newman’s surprising win gave Penske his first trip to victory lane at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Combine that with Busch’s second-place and rookie driver Hornish’s 15th place and it was quite a day for Penske’s team.
“I’ve been here almost 30 years trying to get in victory circle,” Penske said. “To achieve this with this competition, with Ryan Newman, a student of the sport, and (crew chief) Roy McCauley and the whole team, this is just unbelievable.”
While NASCAR believes the Daytona 500 is the biggest race in the world, the Indianapolis 500 is steeped in history and lore, and known worldwide as a great sporting event.
But even Penske had to admit this victory was special.
At Indy, a Penske Racing car is expected to win the 500. In NASCAR, a Penske win in the Daytona 500 was completely unexpected.
“Comparing it to the Indy 500, as Ryan knows, we’re open-wheel guys,” Penske said. “Coming down here has been tough. This has got to go to the top of the charts here. To see this win, I’m going to try to have them back to back and have one in May, too. That’s my real challenge right now.
“Certainly, our wins at Indy have been important to us.  But there is no question when you run 35 or 36 races a year with the tight competition in NASCAR, the way this sport has been developed by the France family, it’s tough.”
So there it is, Penske is laying down a challenge to his two IndyCar drivers, Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe, to go out and win the Indianapolis 500.
That would make him the first team owner to win the two biggest races in the world in the same season.
Penske also takes pride in the fact this was a “team” effort. Newman wouldn’t have gotten to the Daytona 500 win without Kurt Busch’s push on the final lap.
“We started this season with all three drivers, all three crew chiefs and the engineering folks together  and said, ‘Look, we got to make this one effort,’” Penske recalled. “When Kurt stepped back, we moved the points to Sam and there was obviously a lot of discussion about that.
“But I think Kurt and Ryan are different. They do different things Monday through Friday. I can tell you at the race track, the three drivers get together after every practice and it’s made a huge difference. If you can’t win yourself, you want your teammate to win. I’ve always said we win as a team and we lose as a team.”
And on Sunday night, they celebrated as a team and that made this victory so worthwhile to the team owner who demands results and expects success.
“I think Ryan will say the relationship with Kurt has made a big difference for him,” Penske said. “He really wants that, too. Kurt came down to the winner’s circle crying when he saw that Ryan won, because he knows how much it meant.
“And the fact that he could make a difference in that victory I think is special to him and special to Ryan.”