Temperatures were in the 30s at 9 a.m. on Friday, when Brad Keselowski took to Atlanta Motor Speedway for his first NASCAR XFINITY Series practice of the season. Though cold and probably sleepy, thanks to seven-month-old daughter Scarlett, Kes was happy to put in work for the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford team on its quest for a fourth consecutive championship.
The No. 22 team has brought home three straight NXS Owners’ Points titles for Team Penske owner Roger Penske. They clinched the third on Brad’s win at Texas Motor Speedway late last season. They’re already on the right track to pick up where they left off thanks to Joey Logano, who kicked things off in 2016 with a second-place finish for the Double Deuce in the first NXS race of the season at Daytona.
Now Brad will take the reins in the Heads Up Georgia 250 and he’ll have to deal with some unique challenges that drivers in all three series will be facing over the weekend, mostly relating to tire falloff.
“We know that tires wear out really quick in Atlanta, and we didn’t want to practice. But if the guys can get one run in a session like this and not put too much wear on the tire and cars, but still get some of their notes and processes started, that’s always an advantage,” Brad said early Friday morning. “Up early, in the cold. Not really useful for anything but them, but that’s part of being a team player.”
Being a team player has been part of Brad’s rationale for racing in the XFINITY Series over the years. When Brad joined Team Penske, he made a strong case to The Captain: BK wanted to build on a strong foundation, set in NASCAR’s second series. Kes brought home the NXS drivers’ championship in 2010—Penske’s first ever NASCAR title. Since then, the No. 22 team has gone through a rotation of drivers. Anchored by BK, Logano and Ryan Blaney, the team has won three owners’ crowns in a row.
Brad, the fifth-winningest driver in NXS history, has been solid at Atlanta in his career, but none of his 34 XFINITY wins have come there. He finished 25th in his first appearance on the 1.5-mile Hampton, Ga. oval in 2007. Since then, he has had four Top 10s in five races. His only non-Top 10 came during his 2010 championship run, when he finished 12th at Atlanta. His last AMS start came in 2012, and it was his best. He started eight and finished second.
Since that 2010 championship, BK’s volume of XFINITY starts has dwindled, dropping all the way to just nine last year. But that hasn’t hurt his success in the series. He’s totaled 14 NXS wins in just 36 starts over the last three seasons. His last time behind the wheel in the NXS was in the penultimate race of the 2015 season at Phoenix. He finished second in that race, marking his 21st consecutive Top 10 finish in the series. He’ll look to make it 22 in the 22 on Saturday.
With his number of starts in the NXS dwindling from 29 in 2011, the year he took over the No. 2 car in the Sprint Cup Series, down to 21, 16, 11 and then nine last year, it’s offered the opportunity for several others to hop behind the wheel of the Double Deuce in recent years. What used to be Brad’s starts have been allocated to a number of drivers, with many going to the team’s promising young driver, Blaney. The 22-year-old became a full-time driver in the Cup series this year, driving the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 car with technical help from Penske. But in addition to being a proving ground for Cup drivers, it has also been the ideal farm system for crew members and crew chiefs.
Numerous crew members and all three of the Penske program’s Cup crew chiefs—Paul Wolfe for the No. 2 team, Todd Gordon for the 22 Cup car and Jeremy Bullins on Blaney’s No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford—have come through the NXS. Much of that is thanks to the Double Deuce’s primary sponsor, Discount Tire, for supporting the team no matter who is behind the wheel or in the pit box.
“We are really privileged with Discount Tire to come into this program and afford us a lot of leniency to do those types of things. Roger Penske and everyone at Team Penske has really grabbed ahold of that and made the most of it,” Brad said. “If you look right now, the three crew chiefs that Penske has had a the Cup level have all come through this system. We want to continue to utilize it, and it has bared a lot of fruit for us. We have kind of a fresh crop here this year, and with that outlook, it’s interesting with all those dynamics, but I’m glad to be a part of it and play a role in hopefully seeing these guys at the Cup level someday.”
With that freedom, the farm system has flourished, and it has produced yet another new crew chief. Brian Wilson, former race engineer for Brad’s No. 2 Cup team, has assumed the role of crew chief for the No. 22 NXS crew. Wilson could occasionally be heard on Brad’s radio in recent seasons, and he now will take over the strongest team in the XFINITY series.
“I am looking forward to this new challenge and the opportunity to lead the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang team after my last stint there during our first championship season in 2010,” said Wilson. “This is a team that has certainly proven that they know how to win and I want to continue that tradition. I’m excited to get a chance to continue to work with Brad and to get to work more closely with Joey and Ryan. Our goal will be to maintain the level of success that this team has shown since its beginning and continue to race for wins each and every week. Winning that fourth-straight NASCAR XFINITY Series owners’ championship would just be the ultimate prize.”
BK will look to give his longtime race engineer his first win of 2016 on Saturday afternoon, and hope to pick up where Logano left off in starting the quest for Owner’s title No. 4 off right.
The Double Deuce ran three laps in the early morning practice session, just enough to give the 22 team something to work with, and posted the sixth fastest time (30.494 seconds). It was sixth again (30.902 seconds) in the practice two, and remained there despite a slight improvement in speed (30.885 seconds) in the third and final practice of the weekend. Over those three sessions, Brad ran a total of 50 laps.
Brad wraps his busy Friday with a Sprint Cup qualifying session at 5:45 p.m. ET. Then he’ll be right back at it on Saturday morning for XFINITY Qualifying at 8:35 a.m. ET.
The Heads Up Georgia 250 will go green around 1 p.m. ET Saturday and air on FOX Sports 1.