The NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup is here, and with it comes an instant change in intensity, pageantry and drama, as Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 prepare once again to take center stage in the world of motorsports.
Wins reign supreme in the new Chase format, as Brad explained in his recent Ford Performance playoff promo. Kes took that to heart last year when he won the opening race of the postseason at Chicagoland Speedway—and he’ll be looking to do it again in this weekend’s MyAFibRisk.com 400.
“I want you to remember: No team has ever won a championship being content with a second-place finish,” BK said. “You win a championship by making the other team content with a second-place finish.”
BK has won a championship, back in 2012 and after missing the postseason 2013, he returned to the Chase last year and was involved in some one of the biggest storylines in the 2014 Chase, for several reasons. He entered the Chase with the most wins and as the No. 1 seed, and started the postseason with some fireworks when he pulled off a stunning three-wide pass, splitting Kevin Harvick and Kyle Larson late to win last year’s Chase opener at Chicagoland.
With that win, he automatically advanced to the next round of the 16-team playoffs. NASCAR’s new postseason format, which debuted last year, features 10 races split up into four rounds. The first three rounds consist of three races each, and after those three races, four more drivers are wiped off the board, setting the stage four a four-man race for the Cup at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November.
Chicago begins it all, and this round, the Challenger Round, will continue in New Hampshire and Dover. Once again this season, after that third race, the bottom four in the point standings will be eliminated. It created a tremendously tense garage, and it also made for some outstanding racing, a year ago.
“The intensity all comes down really to desperation,” Brad told USA TODAY Sports. “When guys get desperate, they take chances they normally wouldn’t take and it opens up your odds of something dramatic happening.”
BK learned that first-hand last year. He started off the second round, the Contender Round, with a 36th-place finish, then a 13th-place finish, putting the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion behind for Round 2’s cutoff. Miraculously, and of course dramatically, Kes pulled off a victory at Talladega Superspeedway, at a time when even a second-place finish would’ve left him out of the Eliminator Round.
He made that win happen, even after some on- and off-track drama at Charlotte the week before. After tension mounted on the track and on pit road, it boiled over in garage, where both Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth went to confront Brad. Hamlin was restrained, but Kenseth executed a sneak-attack in the dark between haulers, sparking a brawl between the No. 2 and No. 20 crews.
The racing soap opera carried on from there. Brad’s Eliminator Round started with a frustrating day and a 31st-place finish at Martinsville, leaving Kes desperate once again with just eight drivers left in contention. He tried to make another winning move at Texas, between Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, and when Gordon tried to close the gap too late, Kes incidentally cut his tire.
BK finished third and Gordon went looking for him on pit road after the race. The No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports driver was furious as he spoke to Brad, who simply tried to walk away from the situation. Meanwhile, the eventual champion Kevin Harvick came up from behind BK and pushed him back Gordon’s way. That push by Harvick incited a brawl involving Brad and Gordon’s crews. Kes put it behind him and finished fourth at Phoenix, but even that wasn’t quite enough to overcome the tough result at Martinsville, leaving BK out of the four-man Championship Round.
The goal this year is to be racing for a title when the NSCS circuit concludes on South Beach.
Fortunately, BK has shown late in the season just the type of consistency that will keep him in the running for the Cup throughout the Chase.
Kes comes into Chicago with a career-best nine straight Top 10 finishes, dating back to July 11 at Kentucky. That streak has included three runner-up finishes, but no wins. Brad has just one victory on the year, which came at Auto Club Speedway in the fifth race of the season, but his 18 top 10s are the third most in the Cup Series. That consistency, despite the lack of wins, has BK feeling that he’s right where he needs to be going into the postseason.
“Even though we won the most races and led a lot of laps last year, we did not win the championship. This year, we seem to be projecting toward peaking at just the right time,” Brad said. “We are here to take that next step now. We have to be good every week now and win races and not get too far ahead of ourselves.”
Brad also won at Chicagoland Speedway in 2012, which as a major part of his 2012 Cup Championship run. He led 76 laps in that victory, and he led 62 in last year’s Windy City triumph. He has two other Top 10 finishes at Chicago, and he knows full well the challenges the surface presents. Kes said tire management will be critical at the Chicagoland Speedway track. He hopes to be aggressive early and use finesse to weave his way to the front as the race gets into its later stages.
“The ability to do both well and know when to transition from one style to the other is crucial and it is something our Miller Lite Ford team does well,” Brad said. “We’ll be on a racetrack where we will have a positive attitude because we had had success there. love coming there. I look at Chicago as a place where we are one of the guys to beat. That is never a disadvantage.”
This race is also a key proving ground for the postseason. BK has long contended that the 1.5-mile tracks are categorically crucial to win a championship. Chicago is one of five mile-and-a-half tracks on the Cup circuit, joined by Charlotte Motor Speedway, Kansas Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway, and the championship venue: Homestead-Miami. There is at least one 1.5-mile track in each round, and dominating the intermediate tracks means dominating the playoffs.
“Mile-and-a-halfs are the bread and butter of this sport,” Kes said. “As we get into the Chase, you win the mile-and-a-halfs, you win the championship.”
Brad has used strong starting position to fuel his impressive run of late, and with qualifying rained out at Chicagoland on Friday, he’ll be in position to do so again. After logging the third-fastest time in the day’s lone practice session, he’ll start Sunday’s race from P3 behind teammate Joey Logano and defending Cup champion Kevin Harvick.
The second row starting slot marks the Deuce’s seventh Top 10 start in the last 10 races, including each of the last four. It also marks his second best starting position in the Cup Series at Chicago. He started second there in 2013, but only finished seventh. Interestingly enough, he’s had to come from much farther back to win at Chicagoland. His victories in 2012 and 2014 came with starts of 13th and 25th, respectively.
But it can’t be a bad thing that the White Lite has shown some of the field’s best speed right off the hauler. He followed Friday’s performance by running fifth in the second practice and posting the second best speed in Saturday’s Happy Hour Final Practice, behind only the No. 78 of Martin Truex Jr.
Brad will look to carry that momentum into Sunday when the MyAFibRisk.com 400 goes green shortly after 3 p.m. ET. The race will broadcast on NBC Sports Network.