The Blue Oval had an incredible weekend in NASCAR. Ford racers won all three divisions at Phoenix and swept the 2024 title in both the Cup Series and Truck Series, giving the automaker plenty of reason to gloat. It wasn’t an easy journey, though, and Ford Performance head Mark Rushbrook sat down with the media after Joey Logano’s championship-winning run on November 10th, 2024, to talk about the work the Ford crews put into motorsports and racing this year.
When Ty Majeski’s No. 98 Ford F-150 dominated the Truck Series race and captured the division title on Friday night, Ford Performance boasted five straight national titles, starting with Logano’s own Cup Series championship in 2022. In 2023, Ford swept all three division championships with Ben Rhodes’ Truck Series win, Cole Custer’s Xfinity Series title, and Ryan Blaney’s Cup Series championship.
The streak was broken when Justin Allgaier’s No. 7 Chevy Camaro SS took home the Xfinity Series championship on Saturday, but even so, it was the No. 98 Ford Mustang Dark Horse of Riley Herbst celebrating in Victory Lane as the race winner. Losing the championship stung, but not as much as it could have, thanks to the incredible showing from the Ford Performance teams throughout 2024.
“Well, like I said, we love winning the championship. And I don’t look in the history or behind, honestly, too much. I just look at the one that’s in front of us and the next one that’s coming up after that,” Rushbrook said in a postrace conference.
He added, “This just keeps building the momentum for our program. We feel like we’ve been working really hard for a really long time to build it, and it’s certainly starting to pay off with the investment in the people and the tools and the partners.”
The season’s results are a huge turnaround for The Blue Oval in 2024. At the start of the season, the Ford teams struggled with the new Mustang Dark Horse-based racers, but clearly, it didn’t keep them down for long. And now that they’ve gotten a handle on things, expect them to be a threat throughout the 2025 NASCAR season and beyond.
Comments
Just like every other major pro sport, money talks in NASCAR too. When any other manufacturer besides GM wins too many races or championships there will be rules changes to prevent that from continuing. That has been NASCAR’s way for several decades. Don’t be surprised when they move the final race out of Phoenix and to a more GM friendly track. Ford and Team Penske in particular obviously have that track figured out.
Why does everyone think NASCAR favors GM, especially considering that Chevy teams just got heavily penalized for manipulating a race and prompted NASCAR to write a new rule that lets it penalize individual manufacturers because execs were so upset?
i glad to see Ford win…but in trucks the are running basically a Chevy engine…and it taints there image…..should pull out of run one o there on engines…need to have more than just a body….they have plenty of crate motors seal etc they could install….instead of a illmor chevy engine…unreal they think the can pass this off…Congrats to Langano and Penske…