NASCAR AMERICA: Team Penske pushing for incredible season (VIDEO) - MotorSportsTalk

They’ve already got the Verizon IndyCar Series championship this season. But Team Penske doesn’t want to stop there.

Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have carried their strong regular seasons into the Chase. Thanks to wins in the first two Challenger Round races, they’ve already secured berths in the Contender Round – and they hope that one of them will be the last man standing at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November.

In addition to fighting for the Sprint Cup, Penske is also seeking to defend its owner’s championship in the NASCAR Nationwide Series as well. With six races remaining in the NNS season, the No. 22 Team Penske group is 37 points up on the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing team for that coveted prize.

If Penske can pair the IndyCar crown with those two NASCAR titles, one figures it’d lead to quite a party at their team shop in Mooresville, North Carolina.

NASCAR AMERICA’s Mark Martin and Jeff Burton – who were former teammates at Roush Fenway Racing – can certainly relate to being part of a team that’s on a roll. They talked about what it’s like to experience that feeling as competitors, while Bobby Labonte and Kyle Petty discussed how Keselowski, Logano, and their respective teams have been able to click.

Follow @estradawriting

An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”