Lots of NASCAR fans were tired of the "plain vanilla" champions, the Johnson's and Gordon's who always try to say the right thing to the right crowd and now they have Brad who is anything but!!!!! A third generation racer from Detroit who grew up in racing....His father (Bob) raced NASCAR North and ARCA for many years, building his own stuff and being competitive doing it! Just 3 years in Sprint Cup and Brad drove his way to a Championship in a Dodge. At the start of the season I remember all the "experts" saying how the Penske teams were going to just roll over and play dead this year, waiting til next year with the Ford's to be able to be competitive. So, here they come with a very young team, and a crew chief named Paul Wolfe that nobody had ever heard of...Also out of the NASCAR North series, an ex-driver himself turned Crew Chief, who seems to be able to communicate so well with driver and team. They started races with a lot of cars that didn't handle, and during the course of the race tuned the car to be competitive and finish up front consistently! Brad is also one of those drivers who could build the car himself if he had too as he grew up in his father's shop doing just that.

So, Roger Penske started out with a young driver with only 3 years experience who says what's on his mind and can back it up, a Crew Chief and team that nobody had ever heard of (Paul brought some guys with him when he signed on as Crew Chief), scrapped, struggled, and fought his way to the front in the majority of races this year, survived a couple far less then perfect races during the Chase, and came out on top of the heap over the Best of the Best crews and drivers most with at least twice their experience. Yup, I guess Roger Penske just "bought" the Championship after only 27 years of trying......