One Team Penske car has already qualified for the Eliminator Round of the 2015 NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup. This weekend at Kansas Speedway, Brad Keselowski hopes to become the second.
BK currently sits eighth in the Chase standings, and only the top eight drivers will move on to the next round. That means that between this week’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas and next week’s race at the always-unpredictable Talladega Superspeedway, Kes must at least hold on to that eighth spot, if not improve his position, to guarantee his spot in the Eliminator Round for the second straight season.
The best way to do that is to win.
As he aims to do just that, Brad will be back in his familiar No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion this Sunday. From the seat of the White Lite, he’ll be attempting to follow Penske teammate Joey Logano, who locked his spot in the next round with a win at Charlotte last week, to Victory Lane.
“We’re in a reasonable spot heading into Kansas this weekend,” Brad said. “Right now Team Penske has one car locked in to the Eliminator Round and we have a shot to get the Miller Lite team to advance this weekend, which is all you can ask for really.”
In the early stages of race weekend, Brad has already shown the speed to compete for victory. He was fastest in Friday’s first practice session, with a time of 27.785 seconds at an average speed of 194.349 miles per hour. He was the only driver in the 27.7-second/194.3 mph range.
Brad is also building on a history of success at the Kansas City tri-oval. He booked his lone victory at Kansas back in 2011, in only his third career Cup start there, and his first Cup run there in the Deuce. Though he hasn’t found Victory Lane since, he’s still been relatively steady and successful. In fact, Kes has led laps in each of his last four starts at Kansas, including a career-high 52 in this event in 2013, which he finished in position 17. Earlier this year, the Deuce led 43 laps and finished seventh, marking BK’s fifth top 10 finish at the 1.5-mile track.
Brad has led 611 laps in total this season, similar to the pace he set during his 2012 Cup championship season, but far off from the 1,540 he led in 2014. He also likely won’t match the win totals from either year. He won five times in 2012 and six times last year. However, his ninth-place finish last week was his 20th in the Top 10 this year. That matches the 20 he had a year ago, and puts him on pace to top his career-high of 23, set in 2012.
“We haven’t necessarily got the results that we’re looking for with respect to laps led, wins, Top 5s, but our consistency this year has been as good if not better than any other year,” Brad said. “Our Top 10 percentage is slightly better, so I think that’s probably where I’d generate that conclusion from.”
Despite his on-track consistency this season, Kes will be entering Sunday’s race at a slight disadvantage. NASCAR issued punishment this week to the No. 2 and No. 14 teams after both earned their fourth rules warnings of the season at Charlotte Motor Speedway last week. As a result of that punishment, regardless of where the Deuce qualifies, Brad’s pit crew won’t have the right to choose its own pit stall. They will instead be forced to pick between the last two available stalls.
While Brad could attempt to play it safe in an effort to reach the Eliminator Round, he doesn’t plan to. He wants to win his way to a second Sprint Cup title. Even though he hasn’t won a race since March, Brad believes he has a good a chance of any car at winning the Sprint Cup.
With that in mind, Kes said his drive to win is as high as it has ever been.
“I think that would perhaps more solidify, not just in other people’s minds, where our team is, but in my own. And that would be a tremendous feeling for me personally, considering where we’ve come from and how far we’ve come,” Kes said.
The NSCS will qualify at 6:15 p.m. ET on Friday. After determining their starting spot, the 2 Crew will then have two more practice sessions to tune-up their setup on Saturday. The morning session will be broadcast at 11:30 a.m on MSNBC and Happy Hour final practice will air at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network.
Finally, the Hollywood Casino 400 will go green around 2:15 p.m. ET on Sunday and will air on NBC.