No. 2 Crew Excited To Be Back On Track at Kentucky

Few Sprint Cup drivers will relish the return to traditional track racing in the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway more than Brad Keselowski.

Following a frustrating weekend at Sonoma’s road course, BK and the No. 2 team return to an intermediate track where they’ve found success in recent years. Since Kentucky was added to the Sprint Cup schedule in 2011, BK has been among the best in the sport on the intermediate one-and-a-half mile track.

He recorded a seventh place finish in the inaugural Cup Series event at the track back in 2011 and followed that up with a trip to Kentucky Victory Lane during his 2012 Championship season.

Plans for back-to-back wins last season went awry last season when, after starting in the Top 10, he got caught up in a wreck just 50 laps into the race. He took the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion to the garage for repairs and returned after 100 laps to salvage a 33rd place finish.

But that misfortune hasn’t soured BK’s fondness for the Bluegrass state speedway, where he’s also visited Victory Lane twice in the Nationwide Series.

“Kentucky has been a good track for this team in my experience,” Brad said. “We’ve won here, which adds to our confidence going into the race. The team builds Ford Fusions that do very well here, and that makes my job as a driver a lot more fun.”

Prior to finishing 22nd at Sonoma, Kes had the Deuce on a roll with runner-up finishes at Dover and Pocono, and a third place run at Michigan in the previous three races, his fifth, sixth and seventh Top 5 results of the 2014 season. Only Dale Earnhardt Jr. has more this season.

Additionally, Brad has led at least one lap in 14-of-16 races so far this year and his 507 total laps led this season are third-most in the series. Those steady results helped him leap up to fifth in the points standings.

“The Miller Lite crew has been very consistent lately, and other than Sonoma we have been running quite well,” Brad said. “Kentucky is the ideal place for us to get back on track in the Miller Lite America Ford and back into Victory Circle.”

By the time the green flag waves Saturday night, Brad will know the track surface at Kentucky like the back of his hand.

He and the No. 2 crew participated in testing at Kentucky last month and Crew Chief Paul Wolfe believes the extra track time will benefit the team’s ability to execute.

“We had a productive couple of days at Kentucky last month during the Goodyear test,” Paul said. “I think that bodes well for us this weekend. On top of that, this track surface requires a lot of mechanical grip as well as good aero-balance, and those are two areas that we do a pretty good job.”

In addition, Kes will spend nearly every waking moment this weekend circling the track in one machine or another as for the third year in a row he is running the triple-header of Camping World Truck Series race on Thursday, Nationwide Series race on Friday and Sprint Cup Series race on Saturday.

“Driving all three races is nice in terms of getting extra track time,” BK said. “The more information I have as a driver, the more useful I am to the team.”

Kes had three practice sessions on the surface Thursday, two in his Brad Keselowski Racing No. 19 Draw-Tite Ford F-150 for the truck series and one in the Team Penske No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang for the Nationwide Series, then qualified his truck in 14th and drove it to a fifth place finish in the UNOH 225 on Thursday night.

He was back at the track bright and early on Friday for another Nationwide practice run and two Sprint Cup practice runs. He’ll also qualify both cars on Friday afternoon ahead of Friday’s Nationwide Series John R. Elliott HERO Campaign 300

Wolfe expects that all the time Brad has been spending on the track this weekend to play to the advantage of the No. 2 team on race day.

“Since he is driving all three races, we should have a good handle on what he will need in the race come Saturday night,” Wolfe said. “Overall, other than last week, this team has been executing very well. Brad seems to do pretty well here at Kentucky too.”

So far, so good in practice on Friday. The No. 2 It’s Miller Time for America Ford Fusion was second fastest in the morning practice session with an average speed of 182.143 miles per hour over a 29.647-second lap that left him just over two hundredths shy or rookie Kyle Larson for the top spot in the session.

BK managed to nab that top spot in the Happy Hour afternoon session as the Red, White and Blue Deuce was even better under the hot Kentucky sunshine posting an average speed of 183.101 mph over a lap of 29.492 seconds. The time was just nine hundredths of a second off the Kentucky Speedway track record set by Dale Earnhardt Jr. last season.

Kes and others will be gunning to set the 12th new track record of the season in knockout qualifying which begins at 5:30 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.

After his busy Friday, Brad will bide his time before the race on Saturday by paying a visit to Ford Racing display in the Fan Zone at Kentucky Motor Speedway on Saturday, June 28 at 4:05 p.m. ET.

The main event of the weekend, the Quaker State 400, will take place under the Saturday night lights at Kentucky Speedway. Race coverage begins at 6:30 on TNT with Countdown to Green and the green flag is slated to fly at 7:46 p.m. ET.