Rolling off a victory at a 1.5-mile venue in Atlanta Motor Speedway last weekend, Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion team will bring plenty of confidence to similar track in Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend.
Brad returns to the Kobalt 400 as the reigning race winner. BK captured his second career Monster Energy Cup Series victory in Vegas one year ago, though the Nevada track hasn’t always been kind to him.
“You know, we didn’t click there the first few years. 2009 we ran okay,” Brad said of Vegas. “I wrecked, my fault. 2010 we ran terrible, 2011 we ran terrible, 2012 we ran okay, and we broke a part. I think we were running second. And finally we got all that stuff pushed out, and like you said, the last three or four years, ’13, ’14, ’15, ’16 have been great for us.”
The numbers back it up. His Vegas debut in 2009 was hindered early as a blown tire on lap 3, which set the team behind the 8 Ball, shaping up for a dismal P38 finish. The next two trips in 2010 and ‘11 were mediocre races, finishing 26th, and two laps down in both of them. And then it changed.
On BK’s 2012 Championship march, it seemed like he finally figured LVMS out. Battling Tony Stewart for the win late in the going, the newly adopted Electronic Fuel Injection unit failed the Deuce during a crucial restart – sinking him like a rock through the field.
“We were going to give him a run for his money, and I was going to drive my butt off,” Brad said. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”
The finish wasn’t there, but the performance was in 2012, but in the four years since, the 2 Crew has brought excellent machines and execution to Sin City. Returning in 2013, Kes claimed the Pole due to some Friday afternoon weather. But this time, he ran strong all day, leading 12 laps and finishing third, 23 spots better than his previous career-high. And the following year, he bested that finish while claiming his first Las Vegas triumph. Racing a fuel-saving Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the final laps, Brad pushed him over the limit on the last circuit, running the No. 88 out of gas.
“He was going to have to burn fuel to keep me behind him,” BK said of his battle with Dale Jr. “At that point, it was just a matter of whether a yellow (flag) came out or not, because it was just a ticking time bomb. It worked in our favor today.”
After a solid seventh place in 2015, BK bounced back to another win in 2016, again making a lead-changing pass in the closing stages of the event. Taking the lead from rival Kyle Busch with just six laps to go, the Michigan native never looked back and rolled away with his first of four season wins.
“This rules package — I love it, it’s awesome. You can be really fast at the start of the run or at the end of the run, but we had awesome speed at the end of the run. It finally started to take off with 25 to go.”
With a win last weekend in the Autotrader colors, Keselowski returns to the familiar Miller Lite livery this weekend. So far this year, the only color that has mattered in the Monster Energy Cup Series is the blue oval. Ford Performance has been dominant so far this season with Stewart-Haas Racing now in the fold.
Kurt Busch kicked it off with a Daytona 500 win in his No. 41 Ford, and Kevin Harvick continued it in the No. 4 last week, leading 292 laps in his second race with Ford equipment. Harvick was flagged for speeding late in last week’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, but Brad and the Deuce were there to carry the torch, besting Kyle Larson’s No. 42 Chevrolet to make it 2-for-2 to start the season.
“For Ford, it’s terrific that we kick off the season, certainly with Kurt’s win last week and the win this week for us,” said team owner Roger Penske. “It’s a great start to be in the Chase.”
After two full-point-paying events, the 2 Crew is ranked third with 84 points, only trailing Busch and Harvick. Team Penske’s No. 22 driver Joey Logano joins BK and Co. in the Top 5, while Ryan Blaney makes it five Fords eighth or better in points, driving the Penske-powered No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing machine. Additionally, Brad is tied with Busch for first with five Playoff Points apiece.
With a tremendous foundation laid already for this 2017 season, both Brad and crew chief Paul Wolfe are ready to continue building over the next 24 races. And with two Las Vegas wins on their resume, this weekend brings another opportunity to build that Playoff Point profile.
Grid setting qualifying is scheduled for Friday at 7:45 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 2, along with a pair of practice sessions on Saturday. The Kobalt 400 is slated to go green at 3:30 p.m. ET, live on FOX.
22 CREW LOOKS TO CONTINUE STRONG START
For the third time this season, Brad plans on maximizing his weekend in double duty form. Already having completed the LVMS weekend sweep in 2014, he knows that the preliminary race is the crucial first step in repeating that.
“We’re going to go to Vegas and think of it as a track we can win at, that we have won at, and we’ll continue to look at all the tracks that we’ve struggled at in the past the same way and hope to find that success,” BK said.
While he admittedly struggled early on in his Cup career at Sin City, he took off right away in the XFINITY level. Dating back to his first full-time NXS season in Earnhardt Jr.’s car, his grip has been tight on the Nevada race track. Leading the 2008 event with just a handful of laps remaining, an untimely bump from then-JR Motorsports teammate Mark Martin to Carl Edwards, who tagged the left rear of BK’s No. 88, sending it into the wall.
“I’m really unhappy we took a DNF in a race we had a shot at winning, if not a Top 5,” Brad said. “We’re going to win some races if we keep doing this and keep it up.”
The 23rd-place result was disappointing, and it was only capped off by an early-race blown tire in 2009, leading to another finish outside of the Top 20. Similar to Brad’s Cup history, it changed for the better at LVMS. In 2010 he claimed the Coors Light Pole award in track record fashion at 185.427 mp, a benchmark still untouched today. Claiming a P4 finish that day, and bettering it by a spot the next year, it showed that Kes had a knack for the track, and the luck to make it work.
Then in 2014, Brad broke through in monumental fashion, as he dominated much of the afternoon. Logging 144 of 200 laps out in front of the field, the win didn’t come without a share of adversity, as the No. 22 car battled alternator issues in the closing laps.
“These races aren’t getting any easier to win,” the 2010 Champion said. “I was driving as hard as I could every lap, and I knew it was a matter of time until he
As it stands now, Team Penske’s No. 22 Discount Tire Ford holds the Owner Points lead with 93, a massive 19-point gap back to Richard Childress Racing’s No. 2 team. Team Penske will also bring out the part-time No. 12 REV Group entry with Joey Logano behind the wheel, doubling the legendary race team’s chance at notching another tally in the W column.
Coming off of a runner-up result in Atlanta last weekend, and a fourth in Daytona, the 22 Crew is still in search of their first win since Texas in the fall of 2015. Tune into the Boyd Gaming 300 on Saturday, March 11 at 4 p.m. ET, live on FOX Sports 1 to see if they can get it done.