BK Starts in Second Spot at Texas

The Blue Deuce will start in the No. 2 position on Sunday in the AAA Texas 500.

Brad Keselowski took the Miller Lite Ford Fusion for a 27.537-second lap in Friday’s qualifying session for the AAA Texas 500, nearly good enough to get the pole for Sunday’s race. He was knocked out of pole position by one of the last drivers to qualify, Carl Edwards, who beat BK’s time by a mere two-thousandths of a second.

“A really good lap by the Miller Lite Ford team,” BK said after qualifying. “I knew the 99 car (Carl Edwards) would be a tough bullet to dodge, but it was close. This will give us a good starting spot and a good pit selection. I feel really good about our chances on Sunday.”

After taking his ninth Top Five finish of the season last week at the narrow “paperclip” short track at Martinsville Speedway, Brad will take the Blue Deuce to the wide-open Texas Motor Speedway in search of Top Five No. 10 and victory No. 2.

And as the series makes a stark change in venue, BK feels confident about competing for his first win at TMS in the AAA Texas 500. This week, Brad talked about how the rough surface in Texas plays right into his strengths on the track.

“For whatever reason, my driving style tends to lend itself more to the bumpy, rough racetracks,” he said. “Texas definitely fits that mold.”

In the AAA Texas 500 last year, Kes put on one of the best shows of the entire 2012 season, battling with rival Jimmie Johnson through a thrilling finale near the end of the Chase for the Championship.

The conclusion of that contest featured several yellow flags, eventually allowing Johnson on four fresh tires to pass Brad, who took just two fresh ones in his final pit stop. Although the win eluded BK on that day, the strong result helped to set up his Cup title run over the final two races.

One key member of that Cup run will be making a homecoming over the weekend. Rear tire carrier Larry Robinett is a native of Garland, Texas. As BK aims for his first win in Robinett’s home state, he’ll be doing so with plenty of firsts at the track in his rearview.

Kes made his first Sprint Cup series start at the 1.5-mile track in 2008, where he turned a 37th-place start into a 19th-place finish. The following year, BK made his first NASCAR start with Penske Racing at Texas, finishing 35th. Brad’s results at the track have been mixed since then, but he has only improved with time.

BK has now qualified in the Top 10 four times at TMS, including last fall’s AAA 500, which set up the thrilling battle with Johnson. That second-place result last fall, in which BK led 75 laps, was Brad’s best at TMS. He followed that up with a ninth-place finish this spring at Texas, his best in the early season at the track.

With those positive results cemented in his mind, he is looking forward to another strong showing this time around.

“We were really starting to make some headway with the old car there,” BK said. “I thought we could’ve won both races at Texas in 2012. We needed a little more speed in the spring with the Miller Lite Ford Fusion, but I feel like we are starting to come around with it.”

He’ll also be able to pull from several recent successes at tracks similar to Texas. BK led 43 laps at Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier this season and was poised to take the checkered flag before engine troubles ended his night early. Even more encouraging is his momentous victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway three weeks ago.

“Atlanta was shaping up to be a really good race for us before the engine issues,” Kes said. “Obviously we won at Charlotte earlier this month. So I’m confident in our intermediate program right now and I think we can win another one this weekend.”

BK also delved into how Texas runs similar to Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. He explained the banking and tire strategy at the three similar tracks, revealing that a setup between those two tracks will be the best recipe for success for the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion.

“I think you look at Vegas and California, one is a mile-and-a-half and the other a two-mile. Vegas is really, really fast. The tires don’t seem to fall off much there and California is fast,” Brad explained. “There is nothing wrong with that but there is a lot of tire falloff and it is very flat. You look at those two and I would say Texas is right in between them. There is a lot of falloff here but the track is very fast and has a lot of banking. The best cars here will be the ones that can balance the setup between Vegas and California.”

As he looks back at those tracks, Brad will also benefit from plenty of extra practice at Texas over the weekend, as he will be running triple duty over the weekend.

Originally planning to just run the Cup Series event at TMS, BK elected to also take on the Camping World Truck Series Winstar World Casino 350, in which he finished in 21st.

Kes also took Nationwide Series duty in the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford from Penske Racing teammate Joey Logano, allowing Logano to focus his efforts on his Chase run. The result was Brad’s sixth Nationwide win of the season, as he drove the double-deuce to Victory Lane in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge. It was also a Penske Racing record 12th win overall this year for the No. 22 team.

Brad has been strong all weekend in Cup practice. In addition to his second place qualifying effort, he was sixth in the first practice on Friday, third in the second practice and tied Chase for the Cup points leader Matt Kenseth in the third and final practice on Saturday morning. The efforts set up what could be a huge day to cap a big weekend at Texas for BK.

The AAA Texas 500 will go green shortly after 3 p.m. ET and the race can be seen live on ESPN.