It didn’t start off well for two of the three Team Penske cars in Wednesday night’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 at the Martinsville (VA) Speedway. Ryan Blaney may have started on the pole, but his car was terrible early on. He described it as being loose entering the corners, tight in the middle and so bad at turn exit that he couldn’t hit the gas. He went from first to a lap down in 49 laps around the .526-mile Virginia short track. Then, the climb came back on. He was 30th on Lap 40 but moved back to second on Lap 220.

“We started off really bad,” Blaney said. “We went from starting on the pole to being a lap down in 60 laps. That’s kind of tough to do. We found a way to do that. We already dug ourselves a hole early. … After the first pit stop, we got our car a lot better, a lot better. I think just the green racetrack didn’t really go well with what we had or something. We really wore our tires out. I had to run the top a lot, was getting passed. I don’t think that helped.”

Brad Keselowski also had a terrible handling race car as he went from sixth to 30th in the first handful of laps. Keselowski, was 22nd, one lap down in Stage 1 and 12th in Stage 2.

“By the time we were able to get the lap back, we were at Stage 2,” Keselowski said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get any stage points, but rallied to get up to the lead there about 150 to go. Wasn’t quite good enough to hold off (Truex). He was super, super strong. He proved why he’s so good. He just kept passing cars, just flying. Pretty impressive.

Meanwhile, the third car in Joey Logano was the far opposite. He won the first stage and led 175 of the first 201 laps.

As we got into the second half of the race, Logano’s faded a bit while Keselowski and Blaney’s turned it up. Over the final couple of hundred laps, they were all three top five contenders. At one point, they were running 1-2-3. They’d get some company up front though by virtue of Martin Truex Jr. who passed Keselowski for the lead on Lap 369 and would lead the final 131 laps as a result en route to the win.

“I think if you look at what was going on last year we all had good speed, all of our cars were strong at different points of the season or different types of race tracks, so I really didn’t see much of a risk by doing it and I think I’ve seen just a longer runway for everybody because you’re really sharing information,” Logano said.

“Obviously, we share setups and we talk to each other, but I never drove Brad’s car. I never worked with (crew chief) Paul (Wolfe).  Blaney never worked with Todd (Gordon) and Jeremy with Brad.  We can talk about it and we can try to mimic setups, but it’s not the same. … At the same time, I’m bringing what we did last year to Paul and Paul is bringing what he did last year and we’re able to just kind of try to make the best of both worlds. It’s been fun.

“There have been a lot of interesting conversations that get sparked that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. As weird as it is to see what was your team for six or seven years working with Blaney, but I honestly can tell you that the relationships that you build with your team it becomes family, so I hope for their success and I’m glad to see Blaney is running really well and leading a lot of laps and a win is right around the corner.”

Blaney, Keselowski and Logano finished 2-3-4 behind.

For Blaney, it was his fourth top four finish in the last five races of the season.

“We had a great long‑run car,” said Blaney, who took the lead 35 laps into the final stage. “(It was good) to be able to get the lead there at the start of the third stage, kind of biding our time, taking care of our stuff.

“(Truex) just got away from me. I couldn’t run him down. By the time I got to second, he was gone. … I was never really close enough … on equally worn tires to see what we had for him.”

For Keselowski, he now has nine straight top 10s in Martinsville and six consecutive on the season.

“All in all was really proud. The first time I’ve been here with (crew chief) Jeremy Bullins. This is a track you get a lot of reps with a crew chief, you reiterate, find small things to get to the front, to be the best. To come here our first time together and run third I think is a pretty good mark for us.”