Marking the one year mark since his, and the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford team’s last visit to Victory Lane, Brad Keselowski wants to change that stat this weekend in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway.
Kes led 62 laps in this event last year, and he knows that to make it back-t0-back wins, he’ll have to work for it.
“It wasn’t a gimme race by any stretch of the imagination,” BK said after last year’s win in Texas. “We had to earn it, and we did just that with a strong, consistent day.”
Brad ran Texas in the spring NXS event, establishing his season-best third-place finish. And he felt that was a stepping stone toward the program getting back on track.
“It was a decent day for the Discount Tire Ford and for our XFINITY program,” Brad said. “We haven’t really started off the year like we wanted, but we’ve got a little bit of momentum. I think we’re starting to get our cars a little bit better. Of course, we want to win and you look at the format the XFINITY Series has and winning is really all that kind of matters.”
This weekend will mark BK’s 14th appearance in NASCAR’s second-tier event, so far amassing four Top 5s and 10 Top 10s, but in the series all about winning, the 2010 series Champion has yet to do that.
His stats at Texas Motor Speedway aren’t shabby either. In 17 total starts, he owns a pair of wins, 11 Top 5s, and 13 Top 10s while spending a total of 282 laps out front of the field. Even more impressive is how, dating back to the start of the 2013 season, Kes has never placed outside the podium.
For both Brad, and team owner Roger Penske, TMS holds a special place in their hearts. In the fall of 2010, Kes wheeled the No. 22 Discount Tire machine to Team Penske’s first NASCAR title, two weeks ahead of the finale.
“I’m thrilled for my Discount Tire/Ruby Tuesday team,” said Keselowski. “This is an awesome team that just fights real hard.”
The Captain also shared his enthusiasm for the XFINITY Series success.
“We’ve been in NASCAR a long, long time. To me, this championship is like winning the Indy 500 for the first time. What can you say; it’s a team sport and a team effort. To me, that’s what we came here for,” Penske said alongside Keselowski with the title in hand.
Looking to add another trophy to Penske’s mantle in the form of a fourth consecutive Owners’ Championship, they are still in title contention, in need of a win to lock their position in the Homestead championship round.
The O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge is set to kick off on Saturday, Nov. 5 at 3:30 p.m. ET, live on NBC.
Team BKR Prepares for a Second Shot at Texas
Brad Keselowski Racing’s pair of drivers heads into Texas Motor Speedway with a load of confidence. As the winner of the most recent mile-and-a-half race in Las Vegas, Tyler Reddick and his No .29 team are bringing back the same truck, named J.J., that they had so much success with.
“It’s really cool to take J.J. to Texas for the first time,” Reddick said. “It’s a Ford F-150 that has a lot of potential on the mile-and-a-half tracks. We have a really good Cooper Standard Ford F-150, so we need to do be smart and do what we can to qualify up front. It’s going to be much cooler this weekend compared to the temperatures back in June, so you may not see a lot of tire fall off. Hopefully the weather will be a little bit on the warmer side and the other two series will lay down lots and lots of rubber and get the whole track worked in. That would be an ideal situation.”
Finishing in the Top 5 three of his five races, and leading a lap in three races, Reddick has shown he can get to the front at TMS. And with his Pole award in this race two seasons ago, TR has shown the speed to start up front, and stay there.
Teammate Daniel Hemric looks to end his winless drought in his No. 19 Blue Gate Bank F-150.
“I feel really good about where our team is going for Texas Motor Speedway, especially after our mile-and-a-half performance at Las Vegas and the success we had at Texas in the spring,” Hemric said. “The racetrack tends to change a lot between the spring and fall races, which is something that we’ve spent a lot of time preparing for as an organization. We go there with high hopes of trying to contend and putting ourselves in position to win to win the race. I’m really proud of how far we’ve come and I’m looking forward to taking another step in the right direction.”
Leading 19 laps in the spring event before a crush panel fell in, and finishing second to Reddick in Vegas, Hemric knows he can get it done at Texas. Tune in to the Striping Technology 350, live on FOX Sports 1 tonight at 8:30 p.m ET.