Brad Keselowski couldn’t channel the dominant speed of his throwback “Midnight” Miller Genuine Draft paint scheme at Michigan International Raceway, but he still made a late run in the Pure Michigan 400 to notch his sixth consecutive Top 10 finish.
The No. 2 MGD Ford Fusion ran in the Top 10 for most of the afternoon and was best on long green-flag runs, but a late restart shuffled the Deuce back outside the Top 12 with 10 laps to go. However, BK battled back and passed three cars in the final five laps to finish ninth.
Afterward, he reflected on the decent day on his home track.
“We just needed to be faster, for sure, especially down the straightaways,” Brad said after the race. “It was an okay day. Nothing spectacular. We made the most of our day in every way we could though.”
The result marked Brad’s sixth consecutive Top 10 finish, his longest Top 10 streak of the season, and it was also his fifth straight time finishing better than he qualified.
BK started 14th at Michigan, and he was off to a strong start in the 400-mile trek around Brooklyn’s two-mile D-shaped oval. Thanks to a great start, he was able to push the Midnight Black Miller machine all the way up to eighth position on the first lap. But he didn’t get much opportunity to ride that wave of momentum. In an event that featured eight cautions for 31 yellow-flag laps, the first incident occurred on that very first lap, when David Ragan went for a spin.
Another caution flag came at lap 11, but rather than trying to jump the field on those restarts Brad chose to play it conservative in the early going, in an effort to keep his machine clean, and as a result he was shuffled back to 13th on the second restart. However, as they often do, BK and the No. 2 Ford showed their strength under green, which allowed Brad to pass the No. 14 of Tony Stewart and No. 27 of Paul Menard back to position No. 11 before a NASCAR mandated competition caution at lap 22.
This caution marked the first pit stop of the day for the No. 2 crew, but crew chief Paul Wolfe called for a fuel-only stop, which gave Kes some much needed track position. He was third off pit road and restarted fourth because Austin Dillon in the No. 3 car elected to forgo pit road. But that track position didn’t last long, because on the ensuing run, Midnight wasn’t running well for Brad. He tried to combat its tight condition with in-car track bar adjustments but fell back in the pack to seventh position.
Kes was finally able to come down pit road for a wedge adjustment and four fresh tires at lap 59 and the 2 Crew had him out of his pit box in just 12.3 seconds, again gaining some valuable track position. But the adjustments never quite took hold. Another caution flag flew at lap 72 and on the following run, BK reported that he was still unhappy with the car, which lacked straightaway speed and the power to make passes.
He remained right around the fringe of the Top 10 for much of that run before pitting under green at lap 114. This stop was set up to give the team the strategy they needed to regain track position, but a miscue on pit road erased that opportunity. BK turned up in 10th place after the stop, but a loose left-rear wheel forced him down pit road for an unscheduled stop during a lap 121 caution.
New tires remedied the issue and also allowed BK to gain ground on a restart for the first time since the start of the race. He jumped from 15th to 13th on the restart, then moved up to P11 after another quick caution and finally passed Kyle Busch to get back into the Top 10 before the race’s seventh caution came at lap 136.
While the leaders stayed out, Brad pitted once again and the 2 Crew strapped four fresh tires on the MGD Ford Fusion. Kes used that rubber to notch his best restart of the day, carving his way from 16th to 11th on the lap 141 restart. During the green-flag run that followed, BK cycled to second place, his highest running position of the afternoon, before pitting at lap 172.
On that pit road trip, Wolfe called for a two-tire stop to give Brad another track position boost, and he cycled out to seventh place, where he was running some of the best lap times on the track. That move put him within striking distance of the leaf for the final reset at lap 187.
However, a disturbing trend from the last several weeks reared its ugly head once more as a poor final restart sunk the MGD Deuce’s ship. Brad fell to 13th on the restart and instead of competing for the win, he spent the final 10 laps passing the No. 1 of Jamie McMurray, Busch’s No. 18, Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 and Menard’s No. 27 car just to get back to a ninth place finish.
His sixth straight Top 10 kept him in fifth place in the Sprint Cup Series points standings. Oddly enough, his ninth-place finish at MIS nearly mirrored his 10th-place result at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where NASCAR debuted the high-drag aerodynamics package also used this past weekend at Michigan.
Brad left both weekends disappointed in the new package, and he shared with the media his opinion on what it brought to the sport.
“It doesn’t matter what my thoughts and observations are, it is what NASCAR wants,” Kes said after the race. “Whatever they want to do. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t the worst I have ever seen but this package increasingly rewards the car over the driver and I am not a fan of that.”
NEXT UP
The No. 2 car will be racing under the lights next week at Bristol Motor Speedway in the Irwin Tools Night Race.
This race comes at just the right time for the No. 2 Crew, which is still starved for their second win of the year. The 0.533-mile short track is one of just four tracks where BK boasts multiple wins. He won back-to-back races there in 2011 and 2012 and in 11 starts as Bristol, Brad has four Top 5s, including a second-place finish in this race last year.
Back in April at Bristol, BK was set to start second in the Food City 500, but rain throughout the weekend created a slick track and that contributed to a wreck just 20 laps in, which swallowed up the Deuce and led to a 35th place finish. They No. 2 crew will look to avoid a similar fate this weekend.
The Irwin Tools Night Race will be run on Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m ET on NBC Sports Network.