GOOD SAM 500

The hopes of Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 crew for back-to-back wins Sprint Cup Series wins never quite came to fruition at Phoenix, and a late tire problem sent the Deuce to its worst finish so far this season on Sunday.

The Alliance Truck Parts Ford Fusion didn’t quite have the speed to compete for the win in the Good Sam 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. However, after starting 19th, BK worked his way into the Top 10 and hung tight to the fringe of the lead group for most of the day. But disaster struck with 87 laps to go when the right rear tire on the No. 2 car shredded, forcing Kes to drop from the 10th position, where he was running at the time of the incident. He ultimately lost five laps as a result of the issue and subsequent repairs, and settled for a 29th place finish.

“We ran in that 10th place range pretty much the entire race until we cut the tire,” Brad said afterward. “The Alliance Truck Parts Fusion was probably about a 10th place car, but you never know how things would have played out without the tire issue.”

The No. 2 was one of four cars to encounter a similar tire problem at Phoenix, with their tires shredding at the end of long runs. Goodyear, the sport’s tire manufacturer, reported that the intense brake heat generated by the cars at Phoenix was melting the tire beads at the position where the edge of the tire sits on the wheel, causing the rubber to separate. It was an issue that also doomed the days of the Richard Childress Racing Chevrolets of Ryan Newman (31) and Paul Menard (27) as well as the Roush Fenway Racing Ford of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (17).

Before the tire incident put a damper on his day, Brad had made the most of what he had in the Alliance Truck Parts Ford, which failed to show the speed all weekend that made the No. 2 car so successful in Las Vegas just one week prior.

The weekend in the desert began with a disappointing Fast Friday. The Deuce was 12th quickest in the day’s lone practice session, but the speed vanished in qualifying and after running eighth fastest in the first round he logged just the 19th best time in round two, failing to advance to the final round of knockout qualifying for the third time in four races already this season. The Deuce missed the final round of qualifying just eight times all of last season.

Speed was an issue for the ATP Ford early Saturday as well, as BK was just 21st best in the morning practice session. But just a few hours later, the No. 2 had made great strides as Brad posted the seventh quickest lap in final practice. That gave the 2 crew some confidence heading into race day.

After starting on the inside of Row 10, the Alliance Truck Parts Ford quickly gained ground, moving up to 16th at the outset of the race. However, as other cars like the No. 88 of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 48 of Jimmie Johnson surged from further back to the front of the field, they left the No. 2 car in their wake. Kes also struggled with the handling of his black and yellow Ford Fusion early in the day and briefly slipped out of the Top 20 around Lap 20.

About 40 laps into the race, as the No. 2 crew closed in on their first pit stop of the day, BK reported that the Deuce was running loose-in and loose-out of turns and was tight in the middle, a troubling condition that made the car difficult to drive and made it even more difficult to gain ground on and pass other cars to move toward the front.

When the first caution came out at lap 52, for the first tire bead issue of the day on the No. 31 car of Ryan Newman, the No. 2 car was marked in 18th position. Thanks to a great first stop by the No. 2 crew, which included air pressure and wedge adjustments to improve the handling of the Deuce for Brad, the Alliance Truck Parts Ford gained two spots on pit road and restarted in 16th, his best position of the day. He moved up a spot in the Lap 60 restart from there started picking off drivers in a march toward the Top 10.

After taking a several laps to get by the No. 5 of Kasey Kahne to 14th, the No. 2 driver quickly drove down and passed the No. 42 of Kyle Larson at Lap 78 to move into 13th. BK continued to note that the Deuce was too loose on entry and exit of turns as the green flag run went on, but it didn’t stop him from chasing down the No. 43 of Aric Amirola and moving by him for 12th on Lap 98. By the 1/3 mark of the race at Lap 104, he’d passed Austin Dillon in the No. 3 car to take 11th place. He was running there, just outside the Top 10 when the second caution of the day came out at Lap 107.

Once again it was a melted tire bead that caused a single car incident, this time for the No. 27 of Paul Menard, who hit the wall and brought out the yellow. From P11, Brad followed the field down for his second pit stop of the day under caution. Another great stop from the 2 crew gained BK two more spots on pit road and he was scored in ninth for the ensuing restart, the Deuce’s first appearance in the Top 10 all day.

However, that did not last long. On the Lap 113 restart, circumstances beyond his control forced Kes to cede a few spots. Starting from the inside of Row 5, the No. 2 got a little stuck on the inside, when the line bottled up in front of him. As the field re-organized to run single file through the 1.022 mile desert oval, multiple cars drove by before BK was able to tuck his Alliance Truck Parts Ford into line in P11. He then had to survive a near disastrous incident where his car lost speed in the straightaway. The No. 78 car of Martin Truex Jr. closed in fast behind him and as Matt Kenseth drove his No. 20 down to try to make a pass, the trio briefly went three-wide into Turn 3 before Kes was able to pull away.

The No. 78 eventually caught the Deuce around the midway point of the race and pushed Brad back to 12th, where he sat when the third caution of the day came out at Lap 163. Once more the caution was caused by a tire failure, this time on the No. 17 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., which sent the car hard into the wall in Turn 1 and brought out the yellow flag.

Once more the No. 2 crew did an excellent job on pit road, quickly making adjustments and putting four fresh tires on the Deuce to get Brad in and out with one of the quickest stops in the field. This time he gained three spots on pit road back to ninth position for the Lap 169 restart.

This time he was able to hold his ground on the restart and kept a stranglehold on the ninth position for about 25 laps. He dropped back to 10th when a hard-charging Kyle Busch, whose No. 18 had fallen from the front of the field to the middle of the pack thanks to some pit road issues on the previous stop, passed the No. 2 on his way to the front. Still Brad held firm on the edge of the Top 10 until Lap 227 when he became the fourth tire-related casualty of the day.

As the right rear tire on the Alliance Truck Parts Ford shredded in the tri-oval and spewed debris all over the track, BK did a great job to avoid contact with either the wall or a fellow competitor as he fell off the pace. However, he was caught at the wrong end of the track and had to nurse the car halfway around the track to pit road under caution. By the time the No. 2 car made it to his pit stall the right rear wheel was essentially out of rubber down to the rim.

The 2 Crew slapped new tires on the Deuce and did their best to repair moderate damage to the right rear quarter panel, caused by the release of the shredded tire. They got the black and yellow Ford back on the track under caution, where BK was set to take his spot at the tail end of the lead lap. However, when Brad returned to the track, he realized the damage of the shredded tire had not only impacted the right rear quarter panel, it had also severed the rear brake line.

“That was unfortunate and we aren’t really sure why but there isn’t anything we can really do about it,” Brad said of the issue. “It is hard to say really where we would have been if that hadn’t happened.”

The brake line obstacle took a little longer to repair and forced the No. 2 team to essentially abort their pursuit of the race win. As they fixed the further damage to the rear of the car on pit road, the Alliance Truck Parts Ford lost five laps to the leaders. BK returned to the race for the restart at Lap 235, five laps down in 32nd position. He managed to gain three positions over the final 75 laps of the race, though he lost a sixth lap to race winner Kevin Harvick as well, and drove the Deuce home to a 29th place finish, the No. 2 team’s worst of the year so far.

As a result, of the unfortunate incident, Brad gained just 12 points at Phoenix, and fell from sixth to 11th in the points standings. He now has 110 points, 44 behind Phoenix race winner Kevin Harvick, the new Cup points leader. Harvick also tops the Chase grid after four races while Brad slid from second to fourth in the Chase Grid, behind the other three race winners so far this season, Harvick, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin. All four are essentially locks for the Chase by virtue of their wins.

NEXT UP

The NASCAR slate completes its three-week NASCAR Goes West tour of the Pacific side of the United States with a trip to Southern California for the annual race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Brad is the defending race winner at Fontana, where he rallied from fifth on the final restart to win with a final lap pace of Kurt Busch last March. The victory marked BK’s first and only win of the 2015 season.