Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney can easily call Phoenix Raceway his happy hunting ground, given his shining track record at this venue. Out of the 20 times he’s visited there, 14 times he’s finished in the top 10. In fact, in the last four years, he’s finished runner-up four times. Coming off his 2025 November win there, Blaney boasted his confidence at the high-speed oval heading into the race weekend.

Blaney on why he is so good at Phoenix

In a recent interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Blaney made some bold claims to explain how Phoenix has been his and his team’s go-to track. Besides this, Blaney also mentioned that he managed to achieve an impressive average finish at this track, which stands at 6.4.

“Phoenix is a place we’ve consistently run very well, especially in this car,” Blaney said. “And we had, we blew up here in this race last year, which really hurt our average finish here, which really upset me because we had a great average finish going. But yeah, I mean, it’s just honestly, it’s a place people ask all the time, like, how are you, why are you so good there? And I’m like, yes, I enjoy the racetrack.”

Following this, the #12 driver mentioned how Team Penske generally has fast cars at this track. Given the low-banked, desert-oddball type of track Phoenix Raceway is, the Ford Mustang Dark Horses receive an impetus, as seen in Blaney and Logano’s performances here in the last few outings.

“And I feel like I have a decent understanding of what I take, what it takes to go fast around there, and kind of what I need my car to do. But Penske’s always brought really fast cars there. It was nice to finally get a win there last year in the fall. We’ve run second there a lot of times, and it was nice to finally win. So I’m looking forward to it this weekend,” Blaney further added.

Notably, Phoenix Raceway has been the venue for the Championship 4 race since 2020, and Team Penske drivers emerged as the winners three times at this track — Logano in 2022, Blaney in 2023, and Logano again in 2024. In all three times, the drivers who won the races claimed the championship.

In 2025, Blaney won the final race, but he did not win the title as he wasn’t running contention. Besides hosting the final races, the track has also hosted a regular-season race every year, where Logano won the races in 2016 and 2020. In a nutshell, Team Penske drivers have six wins at this track in the last 10 years.

As a result, it is fair to say that Team Penske and its drivers, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, could be the drivers to beat at Phoenix this weekend. Interestingly, this is something Kevin Harvick also believes in.

Kevin Harvick warns the NASCAR grid of Team Penske threat

In the recent Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast, the former NASCAR driver highlighted how Team Penske can be the team to beat at Phoenix.

Naming all three full-time drivers from Roger Penske’s team as threats, Harvick said:

“I think Ryan Blaney is gonna be tough to beat. He had a ton of speed this weekend. He’s been good at every race. Penske cars have typically been pretty good there from the 12 standpoint. The 22’s been hit or miss [and] the 2 [Austin Cindric], I can’t ever tell where they are as far as what they have going on.”

While 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick had been absolutely phenomenal in the first three races of the season, Team Penske and Ryan Blaney are expected to give them a run for their money.

With that said, it will be interesting to see if Reddick manages to hold on to his winning streak against Blaney and company.