BK Seeks First Truck Win at Charlotte

Champion of NASCAR’s two highest series, Brad Keselowski has accomplished a lot in his career, but when he pilots the No. 19 Draw-Tite Ford F-150 at Charlotte this weekend, he’ll be looking to add another feat to his resume: his first Camping World Truck Series win.

Brad will be taking up the Team BKR banner in the NCWTS for the first time this season for the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 on Friday night, and he’ll be out to make it to victory lane for the first time in a truck.

Kes boasts six top-five and 11 top-10 finishes in 59 NCWTS starts, including second-place finishes in each of the last two years. One of those runner-up results came in 2012 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. No. 19 crew chief Doug Randolph believes Team BKR has two solid shots at victory this weekend. Brad will be joined on the track at Charlotte Friday night by teammate Ryan Blaney—who has two top-six finishes in three truck starts this year—in the No. 29 CareerforVeterans.org Cooper Standard F-150.

“(We’re) really comfortable,” Randolph said. ” You never know how the race is going to play out, but I definitely felt that both our Draw-Tite Ford F-150 and the Cooper Standard Careers For Veterans Ford F-150 were as good as anything there, and I think we’ve got two really good shots at winning, and it’s going to be exciting for us.”

Kes led 32 laps in his 2012 runner-up finish at Charlotte, and in four truck starts at the famed track, he has completed 94.4 percent of the laps run. He finished 14th in his last truck run at the track in 2013 the first of five NCWTS races for BK last year. He finished the season with three Top 10s.

The last time BK drove Charlotte in competition was last October in the Sprint Cup Series, when he recorded his first ever win at the track in the Bank of America 500. While drawing from that triumph, he also believes he’ll benefit from a recent NCWTS test session at CMS.

“I’m thankful that NASCAR put together a test for the teams to utilize a facility that’s close to a lot of the home bases at a rate that was collectively cost effective,” Brad said. ” I think it saved the industry a lot of money.  My hat’s off to them for being forward thinking and trying to get ahead a little bit on the intermediate package for 2014.  I think that’s probably a pretty good thing for our sport all the way around, a good move.” 

Randolph reiterated the importance of practice at the track.

“It’s always very critical in the Trucks because you know you have limited practice, limited sets of tires,” Randolph said. “If you unload and you have speed then you can fine-tune it.  If you don’t have speed suddenly you’re taking big swings at it.  And if the track is changing you really don’t know if you’re making gains or not.  Every week that’s important but Charlotte does change a lot so it is a little more important there.” 

Team BKR may have found something big in those test runs, as the No. 19 and No. 29 were excellent in Friday’s practice session. Blaney and the No. 29 crew were P2 with a top time of 29.953 seconds and Kes was right behind in P4 after turning a 29.971-second lap.

BK will put that practice to use later this afternoon in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series qualifying session, which will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 at 5:40 p.m. EDT

The North Carolina Education Lottery 200 will follow shortly thereafter. Coverage begins on FS1 at 8 p.m. EDT with the green flag set to fly at around 8:30 p.m. EDT.