BK 2014 Top 10: No. 8

Brad Keselowski’s 2014 campaign was one to remember in all three NASCAR series. So over the course of the offseason, we’re going to countdown the Top 10 best moments from one of the most successful seasons in BK’s racing career.

At No. 8 came one of his most dominant performances of the year that was highlighted by a strange champagne mishap in Victory Lane.

No. 8: June 28, 2014

Bluegrass Blowout

Brad Keselowski always flies the stars and stripes out of his No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion after a victory, but at Kentucky Speedway one week before Independence Day, BK did a double star spangled burnout.

After starting on the Quaker State 400 pole, Brad led 199 of 267 laps to notch the first wire-to-wire victory of his Sprint Cup career, and he did it while sporting a special red, white and blue paint scheme on his Miller Deuce.

The win was Brad’s second of the season, erasing all doubt and locking him into the Chase for the Sprint Cup. It also came as his fourth top three finish in five races, making a loud statement that he and the No. 2 team were nearing the elite form necessary to compete for their second NSCS title.

“Our car was awesome,” Brad said. “The team did a great job and I’m just really thankful to have a car this good. I don’t know how else to put it. The Miller Lite Ford Fusion was hauling and I just can’t wait to get deeper in the season and the post-season. I think this is where we need to be to have a shot at another championship, so I’m just real proud of everyone right now.”

This victory was memorable, not just for how dominant Kes was in the triumph, but for the celebration afterward.

After slapping on his second victory sticker, Brad was wielding a bottle of bubbly and attempted to knock the cork off using the edge of the metal trophy stand. But the force caused the bottle to explode, cutting his right hand badly.

Kes was rushed to the infield care center, where he was stitched up and sent back out to talk to the media. Fortunately, Brad was none the worse for wear and returned to joke with the media about the mishap. He was also able to race the next week at Daytona and won again a week later in New Hampshire.

“We were playing around with some champagne bottles and as I told my good friend, ‘We should have stuck with beer,'” BK told SportsCenter after the race. “We were having too much fun with champagne and one of the bottles broke and I cut my hand open. It’s no big deal.”

It was especially easy for Brad to let the champagne mishap rolled right off his back after an incredible night on the track. 

The weekend started successfully when he won his third Coors Light Pole Award of the season, matching his career total prior to 2014. After leading the field to green, Kes owned the first half of the race. In just the first 20 laps, the No. 2 lapped 11 other cars and ripped its way to a 4.2-second lead. The dominant performance continued as the Deuce led the first 78 laps and 120 of the first 127. And for the few laps that Kes wasn’t leading, Team Penske teammate Joey Logano was. The duo led 236 of the 267 laps on the night.

While the Red, White and Blue Deuce was the fastest car in the field by far, the rest of the competitors didn’t make it easy on BK, and neither did pit stops. Kes lost the lead while on pit road three times throughout the night, as his crew—which at that point in the season was still coming together—struggled to keep up. 

However, despite the setbacks, Brad never had trouble making his way back to the lead. He passed Logano for the lead five times over the course of the race.

The bad luck bug also bit late in the event. With 53 laps to go, and in the middle of a green-flag pit cycle, an untimely caution flag flew while several drivers, including Kyle Busch and Ryan Newman, were already on pit road. As a result, they cycled to the lead under yellow, and Brad was shuffled back to the third row for the restart. At the time, it was a here-we-go-again moment for the 2 Crew.

“It was kind of one of those races where you know you just have a really fast car and you’re just waiting for something to go wrong,” Brad told TNT. “And it did there on that last yellow. It just caught us out of sequence and we re-started sixth.”

Misfortunate had spoiled BK’s shot chances at a second victory a few times already in the 2014 season, but victory in Kentucky was simply meant to be. After the reset, it took just seven laps for Brad to move from sixth to second. From there, however, Kes still had a massive 2.5-second gap between his No. 2 and the No. 18 M&M’s Toyota driven by Busch. But when Brad’s longtime rival hit lapped traffic 20 laps into the run, Kes made the winning pass—one he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make if it weren’t for his incredibly strong Miller machine—with 20 laps to go.

“I knew it was going to be a dogfight to get back to Kyle and then race him,” Kes said. “We got there with a really fast car and I hit the perfect run on him with traffic. Next thing I knew, we were there. It feels really good to get that second win.”

It was the No. 2’s second win of the season and second Cup victory at Kentucky in just four races on the rough cement surface. It also continued a four-year winning streak at the track between the Cup and Nationwide Series.

Brad garnered the elusive perfect driver’s rating in the win. Afterward, he talked about the momentum-building win that came amid a stretch of 15 top eight finishes in the final 24 events of the Cup slate.

“I really want another championship and I think this team – we’re getting closer to that position if we keep running like this,” Brad said. “I think when you hit this mark in the season some cars might show a little bit more development but not a lot. You pretty much get to where everyone has almost what they’re gonna have to finish out the year around this time. And when you can run well at this point in time in the year, it bodes well for the final half of the season.”