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Daytona's fabulous 50th Take a visual tour of Ryan Newman's victory in the 50th Daytona 500 more photos

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One reason for the team's slump was the Dodges they were racing were not the best aerodynamically.

"You can't tell the press or the fans it's the car,'' Penske said. "Other people have cars, too, and we just didn't have a handle on it. I think that was one of the things that maybe had us not where we wanted to be.

"But no one gave up. We certainly knew that we could be competitive, and we have been competitive, we just haven't been executing at the end like we did yesterday.''

To get things going in the right direction, Penske put Newman together with crew chief Mike Nelson, who has since been elevated to Penske Racing's vice president of operations, and the team gained some momentum. When Nelson moved up to his new position last November, Roy McCauley took over as Newman's crew chief.

McCauley, who had taken a leave of absence from the team last year to be with his wife, Amy, as she fought a winning battle with Leukemia, has a similar engineering background to his driver. The two hit it off immediately and the big win Sunday was just the latest evidence of how well they have meshed.

"I think emotionally, for me personally, it's a big deal,'' McCauley said of the Daytona win. "I won't say the comeback's complete, as far as that goes. But, from my standpoint, this is as much an emotional comeback for the team in general, as far as having some up and down times and bringing us back as a team.''

After a three-day whirlwind media tour to New York and Los Angeles, with national TV appearances, radio shows and a slew of interviews, Newman plans to show up Thursday at California Speedway more dedicated than ever to that ultimate goal of winning a championship.

"It's been a long time coming to get to where we are,'' he said. "You know, being the 13th win in six seasons is not bad, but we have big goals and ideas that we want to hit.''