BK Fights Adversity Again and Wins at Charlotte

When Brad Keselowski finally crossed the finish line first for the first time in the most adverse season imaginable, he called in to his team over the radio and said all that needed to be said.

“We did it, boys.”

After starting from an unenviable 23rd position and later leaving his pit stall with the jack still underneath his car, Brad and the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford team finally overcame the type of adversity that had seemingly defeated them week after week during the 2013 season to win the Bank of America 500 on Saturday night

The immense hardship Brad and his team endured all season long prepared them to finally triumph in the end, as the defending Sprint Cup champion notched a season-defining victory under the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway, one of the premier tracks on the circuit.

Following Brad’s radio proclamation to his team, crew chief Paul Wolfe chimed in by thanking Brad for his persistence through the season.

“It’s been a tough year, man, appreciate you hanging in there,” Wolfe radioed to Brad. “Everybody on this team has been working hard. Hopefully, we’ve turned the corner here. Thank you.”

After completing a victory lap, BK pulled over near the entrance to pit road, where he was met by a member of his crew holding the American flag. Brad grabbed Old Glory, and went back around to the finish line for a long, smoky burnout at CMS.

When Kes finally parked the Blue Deuce in Victory Lane, he jumped out and reflected on the hard-fought win.

“It was just a never-give-up night,” Brad as he was showered with confetti. “We had a lot of struggles tonight. We didn’t qualify well, but we kept working our way forward. I knew we had a good Miller Lite Ford Fusion.”

The monumental first win of 2013 for the Blue Deuce crew was a weight off the shoulders of the entire Penske Racing organization and owner Roger Penske talked afterward about keeping faith in Brad through the trying season.

“We knew we had good cars, and we’ve got the best drivers,” Penske said. “It was a matter of executing. I never lost confidence, and I’m a glass half-full, not half-empty guy. I wanted to see Brad get a win. He didn’t want to go through this season after being a champion

[not winning]… At the end of the day, we knew he was the guy that gave us a championship last year.”

A championship wasn’t in the cards for the No. 2 team this season, but they’ve entered every race since missing the Chase determined not to end the 2013 season winless.

That was again the case at Charlotte, where the Blue Deuce looked good early as BK worked his way through a crowded field on the 1.5-mile North Carolina track after starting 12 rows back in 23^rd position.

The race stayed green through much of the race and the No. 2 Ford showed speed throughout. Through a pair of green-flag stops in the early running BK moved up into the Top 15 by lap 73.

But it wouldn’t be a 2013 Cup Series race for the No. 2 team without some adversity and shortly after his second stop, Brad reported a vibration in one the rear tires of the Blue Deuce. A timely caution came out on lap 83, allowing BK to dip down into the pits and get four fresh tires, however, when he left the pit stall, the jack was still attached to his car, go back down pit road after a lap around the track to have it removed.

In addition to two unscheduled stops in his pit stall, Brad was penalized for leaving the box with pit equipment, the combination of factors dropping him all the way from eighth place to the rear of the field.

It was another “here we go again” moment for the Blue Deuce crew in a season where everything that could go wrong did go wrong. ESPN’s race commentators even commented, “One of those years this team, isn’t it?” But BK said afterward that previous bouts with adversity prepared him to rise above the latest issue.

“There’s been weeks where we’ve had the execution, not as many as we want, but we haven’t always had those pieces together, and then there’s been weeks where we’ve had the speed and execution, we’ve just had some rotten luck,” BK said. “It’s just been one of those years where you say, ‘How much more can they throw at you?’ I think we ran out of things for them to throw at us … with the jack and we still found a way to win, so that was very special.”

Despite restarting at the back of the lead lap, it didn’t take Brad long to work his way back through the field in the lightning-fast Blue Deuce, which was now handling as good as it had all night. With the jack issue in the rearview, BK began picking off competitors and drove back into the Top 15 by lap 160.

He was all the way up to eighth on lap 230 and on the cusp of the Top 5 following a pit stop on Lap 278 with one of the fastest cars on the track.

Brad’s excitement at a chance for the win was briefly tempered by the news that he would be a few laps short on fuel if the race went green the rest of the way. But shortly after receiving that news, the Blue Deuce crew got the break that had been eluding them all season long when a caution flag flew for debris on lap 307.

With just 27 laps to go in the race and fuel mileage becoming an issue, the entire field elected to come down pit road for one more start to pick up fuel and fresh tires. But while most teams elected to take just two tires, Wolfe made the call for four rather than two and a few minor adjustments that would set BK up to race for the lead. Despite adding two more tires to his car than many of the leaders put on their cars, the No. 2 pit team got Brad out so fast he was able to restart in sixth as one of the top cars with four tires.

Afterward BK lauded Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 and Kasey Kahne’s No. 5 cars and credited Wolfe’s four-tire call as a major factor in his speed at the race’s end.

“I’m not sure we were as good as the 48 or the 5 (cars),” Brad said. “I never got to really race them until the end and they had two tires, so I think we were probably pretty even. When (crew chief) Paul (Wolfe) made the call to take four tires and I saw we were that close to the front, I knew we could get them.”

With four tires and elite speed, Brad carved his way past Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon into second place with 16 laps remaining. From there on out he and his Blue Deuce were locked in a pulse-pumping battle with Kahne’s No. 5.

Brad battled hard with Kahne and made the pass on the inside with nine laps to go, but the fight wasn’t over. Kahne made one final pass attempt the following lap but Brad held him off from the outside.

The next lap, the two leaders caught up to lap traffic and BK gained enough separation to cruise through the final few laps without issue as he raced to the checkered flag and a season-changing win. A thrilled Kes commended Kahne for how he battled hard but clean at the race’s conclusion.

”I love hard racing and there are a handful of guys who can’t race hard and they freak out – he’s not one of them,” he said of Kahne. ”He’s an excellent driver. He ran me hard but ran me clean and that is great racing. He did a hell of a job and deserves a lot of credit for it.”

With the win, BK ended a 37-race drought and picked up his 10th career Sprint Cup victory. He also made some history for Penske Racing as now every Penske driver has logged a win this year in their premier series. After the victory, Brad reflected on how Penske, the No. 22 Nationwide team’s success and the hard work of his No. 2 Sprint Cup team were rays of hope in an otherwise cloudy season.

“I think when I look at Roger (Penske) and putting together the 22 Nationwide team and the success we’ve had over there, that re-instills confidence in myself,” Kes said. “I think I look at some other things that have happened – the truck team runs really well, that makes me feel good – and I know too in the back of my mind that we’ve had strong runs with this car and with this team and we just haven’t finished it off enough times this year. You know it’s there. You know that all you have to do is put all the pieces together.”

Brad is the first non-Chase driver to win a Chase for the Championship race since Kahne back in 2011. With the win, BK moved back to 14th in the NSCS standings, the top spot among non-chase teams.

NEXT UP

Brad and the No. 2 Miller Lite team will try to carry the momentum from Charlotte over to Alabama as they aim for 2013 win No. 2 at the always-unpredictable Talladega Superspeedway next weekend in the Camping World RV Sales 500.

BK finished 15th in the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega earlier this season and seventh in the fall restrictor plate event at Talladega last season. He does have a win at Talladega under his belt from the 2012 Aaron’s 499 in the spring of his championship season.

Going into this race and looking even further ahead toward 2014, Kes will have one factor that hasn’t been easy to find this year: hope.

“It’s like this great big jigsaw puzzle and you start to make progress on it,” BK said. “Am I frustrated it didn’t all come together (this season)? Absolutely. But you start to see hope.”

The Camping World RV Sales 500 will go green at 1 p.m. EDT Sunday and can be seen on ESPN.

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