Kentucky Trifecta Starts with Thursday Night Truck Run

For the second straight year, Brad Keselowski will be running the rare tripleheader this weekend at Kentucky.

Across three days at one of his favorite tracks on the circuit, Brad will race in the Camping World Truck Series, Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series. Last year, BK ran the triple to near unparalleled success at Kentucky.

He finished second in the Truck Series race, seventh in the Nationwide event and then went on to win the Cup race, a victory that kick stared a red-hot summer on his way to the championship in NASCAR’s top series.

According to Brad, his success at Kentucky comes from a comfort level on the track, which he believes suits his style.

“Kentucky is such a rough racetrack and that just seems to fit my driving style,” he said. “There aren’t many of those tracks left on the schedule. The groove is very wide which comes with being an older surface.”

In his first race of the weekend at Kentucky, Brad will be the owner/driver of the No. 19 Reese Towpower Ford F-150 for Brad Keselowski Racing.

“I’m excited to get back into the Reese Towpower Ford,” Brad said. “Kentucky is a great track for us to breakthrough with a win this season.”

Last year’s second place finish in the UNOH 225 is Brad’s best finish ever in the camping World Truck Series and as he jumps into the a Ford F-150 for the second time this year, he’ll be looking once again to drive to victory lane and join his father Bob Keselowski as the only father-son duo to each win in the Truck series.

“A chance to win in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series would be an incredible feat,” he said earlier this season. “It would be great to rewind to the beginning of my career and become the only father-son combination to win in the Truck Series.”

Brad is one of two drivers attempting the tripleheader this weekend as he and Kyle Busch will become the 28th and 29th instances of a drivers running the three series trifecta. Busch is the only driver ever to sweep a tripleheader, which he did at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2010.

“Those guys are brave doing it at Kentucky, because it’s one of the hottest places we go, it seems like,” Nationwide Series points leader Regan Smith told NASCAR.com. “Would I do it? Absolutely. We’re all racers. It doesn’t matter how hot or cold it is. We want to be in the race car and making laps and learning what we can. Certainly, the more races the better.”

Indeed by the time both drivers get done on Saturday night, they will have each spent somewhere between 12 and 16 hours on the track at Kentucky Speedway. But as Busch knows, there is plenty of benefit to spending that much time on the track as grueling as it may be.

“It’s a busy schedule, and you are running back and forth between garages, and it’s typically hot there in Kentucky,” he told NASCAR.com. “The biggest thing you get to work on, and enjoy, is essentially the on-track time and getting to figure out the bumps there, and you get extra track time to figure out if you need to get through them better or if you need to get your guys to give you a better setup to get through the bumps. I have three divisions worth of chances, and three crew chiefs who have different mindsets that, by the time I get to Saturday, I have a feel for what I need to win.”

The weekend starts on Thursday morning with practice for Camping World Truck Series UNOH 225 at 10:30 a.m. and noon, qualifying at 5 p.m. EDT on SPEED. After qualifying for the truck race, BK will also have to jump briefly into his Nationwide ride for a practice run at 6:30 p.m. EDT. Then it’s back into the truck for his first race of the weekend, the UNOH 225 under the Thursday night lights, at 8 p.m. on SPEED.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Three Kentucky Races, One Goal For Keselowski (NASCAR.com, June 26, 2013)
• Keselowski aiming for personal mark in trucks (NASCAR.com, May 14, 2013) 
• Brad Keselowski Racing Kentucky Preview (BKR, June 25, 2013) 
• Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski top NASCAR’s triple threats (Sporting News, June 26, 2013) 
• Keselowski calm heading to Kentucky for 3 races (Associated Press, June 26, 2013)