No. 2 Crew Looking for Monster Win at Dover

As the Chase for the Sprint Cup heads to its first elimination race at Dover International Speedway, Brad Keselowski is safe, no matter how he finishes, so while the rest of the field scrambles to make the Top 12, BK will still be running hard for his sixth win of the season.

Kes qualified on the pole at Dover in June but came up just short of victory, finishing second to Jimmie Johnson. After that result, the No. 2 Crew feels like it can challenge for the win again in Sunday’s AAA 400, even while the rest of the Chase contenders race with desparation on their sides.

“We’ve won here before and I feel as though we are more than capable of winning again,” Brad said. “This race is an important one for our competitors and that will make for an interesting race. I am looking forward to it, and it should be a great show for the fans.”

While a full field of 16 championship hopefuls enters the Monster Mile, the group will be cut down to just 12 after Sunday’s event in Dover.

With his win at Chicagoland Speedway, Brad has already earned his spot in the next round, which will feature races at Kansas, Charlotte and Talladega. His teammate Joey Logano did the same with a win at Loudon last week, but 14 other drivers will be battling for the remaining 10 slots in the next round Sunday.

At Dover earlier this year, Johnson’s No. 48 was simply unbeatable and Brad led just one lap after taking the pole. The start was BK’s first time on the pole at at Dover and the second place finish marked his third Top 5 in nine races at the track. But Kes has gotten better at the Monster Mile as he’s gained experience there, and those three Top 5s have all come in his last four races at Dover.

It has been all good at the one-mile concrete oval lately for Kes, outside of last year’s unfortunate finish in the AAA 400. Amid a string of poor 2013 luck, a damaged rear-end housing took him out of contention, resulting in a 37th-place finish.

BK and the No. 2 team are in much better shape than it was this time last season, going into this fall run at Dover. Kes will pilot the red and white Wurth Ford Fusion this weekend as the points leader, the only driver with five wins and one of just two drivers with 12 Top 5 finishes for the year.

“We are in a good place right now,” BK said. “The team is in championship form and our Wurth Ford has good speed. During the race here earlier this year we qualified up front and then came up just a little short of the goal with a second-place finish.”

Rather than being the runner-up again at the Monster Mile, Brad will be looking for a result more like his fall run in 2012. Kes led just 14 laps but took the checkered flag, which sent him to the top of the point standings in the Chase—a major springboard to his 2012 Cup championship.

Kes enters Sunday’s race as one of the hottest drivers on the circuit. He has two wins in the last three races and five Top-10 results in the last six.

Through 28 races, he boasts 11 top-three, 12 top-five and 15 top-10 finishes. Additionally, his Penske teammate Joey Logano is the only other driver with a win in the Chase, after a triumph last week in New Hampshire. The two teammates look like the drivers to beat for the title, but with eight weeks remaining, Brad isn’t about to call himself or his counterpart the favorite.

“We’re so early in this thing and with the resets that there are, the success of one day really means nothing come the last race at Homestead,” Brad said. “With each reset it looks like an NCAA bracket. In that sense to compare it, it would be like if a great NCAA team beat a lower-seeded team it doesn’t really matter when you get to the next round. It’s great. It’s positive momentum and everything you want to do and think you should do, but when it resets it resets and nothing that you’ve done in the past really matters as long as you’re eligible for the bracket. We’re a long, long ways from using the word ‘favorite’ or feeling overly confident.”

While the points standings will reset after Sunday’s race, Brad will be looking to build as much positive momentum as possible going into the next round.

That process began Friday morning with the opening practice session, where BK was second fastest with a time of 21.988 seconds, just fractions behind Kevin Harvick at 21.971 seconds.

The field for the AAA 400 will qualify ON Friday at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2, and Brad will be vying for his sixth pole of the season and the second of his career at Dover. He has qualified eighth or better at the track in each of his last three tries.

After that, Brad and the No. 2 team will have two more opportunities to tune-up for Sunday’s race with practice runs on Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. ET—the first will air on Fox Sports 1 and the second can be seen on Fox Sports 2. This weekend, Kes is piloting the PRS-921 chassis, which he last drove to a 12th-place finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July.

Coverage of Sunday’s race begins with NASCAR Countdown at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN and the green flag will wave at 2:15 p.m. ET