Brad overcame a litany of issues during the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, and when Kevin Harvick’s dominant No. 4 Ford was flagged for speeding late in the race, Kes was there to capture his first ever victory at the 1.5-mile Hampton, Ga. track. Brad’s win in the second race of the 2017 season was a humbling one.

Brad’s win in the second race of the 2017 season was a humbling one.

“Wins are always special, but early in the season they’re really good. You just can’t take any wins for granted. I know I don’t. I always feel like before a race, you obviously always want to win, and you always wonder yourself when your last win is going to be, and I’m not anywhere near retirement age, but you still think about those things and you think about how tough it just is to win at this level and how lucky you are to have a team to win,” Brad said.

“A great winning percentage at this level is one out of every 10 races, and one out of every 10 races, if you can pull that off, you’re a Hall of Famer. I think that’s just a testament to how tough it is. So today was a tough day for us, and we knew it was going to be a tough day. We had some issues, as well. But that’s part of the sport, and that’s part of everything that’s so challenging about it to win and making it special when you do is to overcome those things like the Autotrader Ford Fusion team did today.”

STAGE 1 – A STRONG START

The Deuce was one of the strongest cars all weekend, earning a fifth-place start at a track where Brad’s previous personal best finish was third place, set in his 2012 Cup Championship season.

Kes rode to third before the first pit stop of the day at lap 35. After one of several outstanding stops on the day by the 2 Crew, Brad cycled out to second behind the polesitter Harvick, who led 292 of 325 laps. BK finished Stage 1 right there behind that dominant No. 4, earning a large chunk of points for his early success.

STAGE 2 – 2 CREW ADAPTS

Brad was running in second in Stage 2 when he encountered his first road bump of the day, literally and figuratively. Kes reported with 54 laps left in Stage 2 that he had hit something and cut a tire. He made an unscheduled stop to swap rubber and cycled back out to 17th, the first car one lap down.

He used his fresh tires and eventually passed Harvick back to get on the lead lap. When the rest of the field pitted, Brad inherited the lead for 11 laps before Harvick passed him back, prompting BK to pit once again. It was a risky move just 27 laps before the end of the stage, but Kes trusted in his crew and the power of the No. 2 on fresh tires, and it paid off. After pitting, Brad drove from 17th and one lap down to seventh on the lead lap at the end of Stage 2.

STAGE 3 – FRANTIC FINISH

The 2 Crew came through with a terrific stop to open Stage 3, vaulting Brad to fourth. Unfortunately, that put him on the weaker outside line, and he was bottled up and blocked out of the Top 5. He spent much of the early portion of Stage 3 fighting his way back up to second place when the race’s fourth caution flag flew at lap 263.

The No. 2 team’s quick stop, plus Harvick spinning his tires in the final pit stall made the Autotrader Ford the first car off pit road. Unfortunately, after Brad led two laps under yellow, crew chief Paul Wolfe’s voice broke the radio silence, saying, “Pit next time.” Kes followed orders and came in to have his right-rear lugnuts tightened. Before he restarted back in 14th with just 56 laps to go, he and his crew remained calm.

Kes followed orders and came in to have his right-rear lugnuts tightened. Before he restarted back in 14th with just 56 laps to go, he and his crew remained calm.

“We win together,” Brad said over the radio.

He quickly passed Matt Kenseth, Trevor Bayne and Clint Bowyer for 11th before Bowyer brought out the fifth caution at lap 47. After a four-tire stop, Brad was up two more spots, off in eighth.

Within two laps of the ensuing restart, BK  had torn his way to fifth place. From there, he bested Daytona 500 winner Kurt Busch and Kyle Larson to move into third position with 28 laps to go. A dozen laps later, the sixth, final and most significant caution flag of the race flew with Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet bowed out due to a mechanical issue.

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While Brad’s No. 2 Miller Lite Ford was one of several strong Ford machines capable of bringing home a win last week, and while BK wasn’t able to do it, Kurt Busch was for Stewart-Haas Racing in its first race with the familiar blue and white oval on the hood of its cards. So while last week wasn’t the finish BK wanted, the opening event was still a source of optimism for the 2 Crew, as it now dons AutoTrader colors for Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“We will get through it and go on to Atlanta,” BK said after Daytona. “We did the best we could and controlled everything we could control on our own today…Our Miller Lite Ford Fusion was fast—all the Fords were fast. Roush Yates brought some great power here to Daytona. It is exciting.”

THE NEXT STAGE

The Daytona event was also the debut of race stages, which helped BK out greatly in the point standings. While Kes finished 27th, he finished the first two stages in fourth place and led 13 laps, earning him a total of 24 points, which tied him for the 13th most in the field.

Couple that with a solid performance in the Can-Am Duel No. 1, tacking on seven more points, he sits 12th in the standings, 15 spots better than where he finished in the 500.

“I thought the stages were good actually and added a nice little element to the race,” Brad said.

With a grasp of the new race structure, Brad’s focus shifts to winning at a 1.5-mile racetrack that has given him some trouble in the past. Kes came through with solid finishes in Atlanta in 2011 and 2012, finishing sixth and a career-best third. Then came an engine failure in 2013 and a wreck in 2014, resulting in finishes of 35th and 39th.

Brad has since rebounded with consecutive ninth-place finishes in Atlanta, but he’s yet to compete for the win in Hampton, Ga. However, he knows what it takes on this tricky racing surface.

“You go to Atlanta and it’s, ‘Hang on!,’” Kes said. ” It’s super fast, super slick. The track wears the tires out very, very fast. The cars have to handle well. You’re lifting a lot. You’re sideways. It’s just a completely different feel as a driver.”

WEEKEND SCHEDULE

Kes will run double duty this weekend. He’s set to pilot the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang for the second consecutive week, looking to build off of a solid fourth-place showing at Daytona. The Rinnai 250 is scheduled for a 2 p.m. ET start on Saturday, Mar. 4 and will be broadcast on FOX Sports 1.

After the opening practice at Noon ET on Friday, the Cup Series will qualify at 5:45 p.m. ET. Final practice is slated for Noon ET on Saturday, and the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 will go green shortly after 2:30 p.m. ET on Sunday and will air on FOX.

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After the restrictor plate opener in Daytona, Week 2 brought the first true test of the new aerodynamics package, and Brad enjoyed the first 1.5-mile track under the new package. The racing was clean in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, which featured just two cautions before one final yellow to end the race in overtime with Jimmie Johnson as the victor. Meanwhile, the 2 Crew had the right setup on the wrong day: The No. 2 Autotrader Ford Fusion was outstanding on short runs on a day of long-run racing.

“We seemed to have really good short-run speed with the Autotrader Ford Fusion, but we didn’t have the long-run speed that we needed and we didn’t get a lot of short runs,” Brad explained. “When we did, we were able to drive to the front and that was a lot of fun. I loved the way the cars drive with the lower downforce package. I understand that it takes more than my opinion to make the sport go round, but I thought it was awesome. I’m looking forward to the rest of the year with the potential this package has.”

The short-run strength was evident from the beginning. After starting 18th, Brad was knocking on the door of the Top 10 just 10 laps in. At lap 18 BK made his way off to eighth before leveling out behind Johnson in ninth. The early run allowed Kes to get a feel for just how much the tires would wear on the rough 1.5-mile oval. Before pitting at lap 40, he had slid back to 11th.

The 2 Crew . Brad and the 2 Crew teamed up to post the second-shortest sequence of that pit cycle: a 1:45.8 trip around the track, including the four-tire pit stop.

“Great job on pit road today. Really appreciate it guys,” Brad said on his radio immediately after the race. “I think that was one of the best races we’ve ever had on pit road.”

Unfortunately, the lack of long-run speed undid the great work from the crew. He fell down to 12th by the end of the run and all the way back to 14th, as the last car on the lead lap when he pitted for the fourth time at lap 151. He pitted for four more tires and an adjustment—and that tweak sent the No. 2 off. Brad rocketed his way nearly back into the Top 10 and reported that it was the team’s best run of the day.

When the race’s first caution flag flew for debris at lap 210, the 2 Crew put BK in position to make another run. The quick stop sent Brad off in ninth place. From there, the blue and orange deuce flexed its short-run muscle. Brad picked off Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch all the way to fourth by lap 235. But just when he got to the front, the tire wear got to the No. 2. He slid back to sixth before pitting at lap 25o.

Brad remained just outside of the Top 5 for a long stretch before falling off on the final long run of the day. He was seventh after a pit stop at lap 283 but fell back to ninth and was the last car on the lead lap. Johnson caught up to him with about 11 laps to go, and Kes did all he could to hold him off and remain on the lead lap. The No. 48 bested the No. 2 with eight laps to go, but Brad held Johnson off long enough to prevent him from lapping another car before the second caution came with three laps left, sparking overtime.

Kes earned the lucky dog free pass to get back on the lead lap. Just after the white flag following the final restart, a large wreck at the back of the field brought out the third yellow, and thus the end of the race with the No. 2 in ninth. Afterward, Brad gave praise all around to his crew, and crew chief Paul Wolfe commended his driver for battling on a day where circumstance didn’t fall their way.

“Way to hang in there,” Wolfe said. “We’re going to have to get our cars better here.”

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BK will sport the blue and orange colors of a new primary sponsor, and he believes will be very challenging to keep those colors where they belong on the 1.5-mile Hampton, Ga. oval. While NASCAR’s season began last week at Daytona, the restrictor plate racing in the 500 didn’t truly showcase this year’s new aerodynamics package. The new setup makes the cars more difficult to control, and Brad expects it will be a tough test for drivers.

“You go to Atlanta and it’s, ‘Hang on!,'” Brad said. ” It’s super fast, super slick. The track wears the tires out very, very fast. The cars have to handle well. You’re lifting a lot. You’re sideways. It’s just a completely different feel as a driver.”

Brad didn’t have the start he hoped for in the Great American Race. The No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion was lacking speed and handling and finished 20th in the season opener. But Atlanta this week brings a new start and a new challenge.

“Speedweeks started off very well for the Miller Lite Ford team. Our car in the Sprint Unlimited was amazing. Unfortunately we just couldn’t get the same performance out of the Daytona 500 car,” Brad said after the Daytona 500. “I’m really looking forward to getting to Atlanta next weekend with the lower downforce package that we used a couple of times in 2015.”

BK was outstanding last year in the two Cup races where NASCAR tested the low-downforce package. He started second and finished sixth at Kentucky Speedway, and he later won the pole and finished second at Darlington Raceway. He also led a combined 258 laps in the two races.

The first mile-and-a-half of the NSCS slate could also give an early taste of which drivers will be championship favorites. The 1.5-mile tracks are the backbone of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, comprising five of its 10 races. Success on the mile-and-a-halfs means success in the postseason, but it begins at a track that has been a bit frustrating for Brad in his career.

In seven NSCS starts, Brad has just one Top 5 (a third-place finish in 2012) and three Top 10s at AMS. One of the three came when BK crossed in ninth last year. In 2013 and 14, his day was spoiled in ATL by either an engine issue or a wreck. He has four Top 10s in six NXS starts at AMS, but it is one of just three tracks, on the current slate, where Brad doesn’t have either a Sprint Cup or XFINITY win.

Brad will look to change that on both Saturday and Sunday. He’ll pilot the Team Penske No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang in the NXS Heads Up Georgia 250 at 1 p.m. Saturday.

BK was ninth in the first Cup practice of the weekend. He logged 20 laps and a fast time of 29.168 seconds. Kyle Larson (28.740) and Kasey Kahne (28.904) topped the board as the only drivers in the 28-second range. The Team Penske cars struggled in qualifying. Joey Logano didn’t make it out of the first round and started 27th. Ryan Blaney was 22nd in the first round but started 24th after a second round.

The No. 2 didn’t fare much better. Brad had to make a second run in the first round to sneak in the second round as the 24th and final driver. Even on tires with extra ware on them, BK gained six spots in the final round to earn a P18 start. The team’s second and final practice comes at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday. The Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 is scheduled to go green after 1 p.m. ET on Sunday and will air on FOX.

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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.

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Just before making his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start of the season, BK penned a blog about his thoughts on his Brad Keselowski Racing truck team, and in it, he talked about just how difficult it is to recover from even one mistake during the short NCWTS races.

And unfortunately, all it took was one mistake on pit road, and BK was doomed to a lap-down 15th-place finish. Despite the result, Brad came away happy with the way his team performed and the way it built a truck capable of winning.

“We had a really fast Cooper Standard Ford F-150 all weekend,” Brad said. “Chad Kendrick and everyone at BKR did a great job.  This is the first truck we’ve taken to the racetrack using our own in house body program and I was proud of how much speed we had.  The breaks just didn’t go our way in the race but I’m confident our group will bounce back strong at Martinsville.”

The adversity began early and stayed around for Kes, as he piloted his No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford F-150 for the first time this year.

His final qualifying lap was the fastest in the field, earning him the pole award and the top spot for the Hyundai Construction Equipment 200. However, NASCAR reviewed his pole-winning run and determined that he hadn’t started his lap before the time was up in the final round of time trials—dropping him back to P10 for Saturday night’s green flag.

The speed Brad spoke of quickly showed, as he moved to second place before the first caution flag flew at lap 18. With just 130 laps, this stop was sure to set the stage for the rest of the race, and BK made the strategic call to stay out and inherit the lead.

He fended off the rest of the field on fresh tires for six laps before yielding the top spot to Erik Jones on lap 25. By lap 38, he had fallen all the way to 10th place, forcing him to pit under green at lap 40.

The No. 29 crew put Brad back out on fresh rubber and down one lap, but a miscue by Kes on pit road put him in an even bigger hole. While driving through the empty pit lane, he drove through too many pit boxes, and he was penalized by NASCAR. After being forced to drive back down pit road, he was trailing by two laps.

If it weren’t for the penalty, the pit decision just might have paid off. A caution flag flew at lap 51, and Kes took the wave around to get one lap back.

From then on, he just held strong and prayed for a caution. He would’ve been left with one extra set of fresh tires and could’ve used them to make one late charge.

“We talked before the race that if a caution came out before lap 20 I was going to leave it in Brad’s hands,” said crew chief Chad Kendrick. “It was a tough call and I had a feeling it was coming. When the leader was pitting I would have wanted to bring him in too but Brad decided to stay out and I was good with it. Brad has more experience in these situations. Then with the pit road penalty it just put us behind the whole race and we could not make it up. If we could have just caught a caution at the end we still had a set of stickers and nobody else did. We were one caution away.”

Unfortunately, that caution never came, and Brad crossed the line in position 15, still one lap down. The result broke a string of thee consecutive top-five finishes for Brad in the Truck Series.

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Brad was running third late in last week’s Daytona 500, when a rare blown engine in the Deuce ended his day. It was just the second time the Team Penske machine had lost an engine during a race since BK took over the No. 2 in 2011.

Coincidentally, the series now shifts to the location of that other engine failure, Atlanta Motor Speedway, where Kes and crew have had some tough luck in recent years. That blown engine occurred in 2013 with the Deuce running out in front at Atlanta and cost Brad a shot at the win. Then last season, Brad again had the No. 2 Ford Fusion running strong near the front at AMS when he was caught up in a late wreck, giving him his only DNF of last season. But despite their annual struggles at Atlanta and last week’s setback at Daytona, BK and the No. 2 crew are ready to leave those rough results in the past and focus on winning this weekend.

“I am ready to race. We ran well here at Atlanta last year and I feel as though we have a good baseline package.” Brad said. “It is going to be nice to get a few hours of testing in prior to the actual start of the weekend. The Detroit Genuine Parts Ford crew is off to a strong start and we are looking forward to getting our “regular season” started after a rough Daytona.”

Brad looks to gain ground and climb the leaderboard at a track where, if it were not for poor luck in his last two races, he would most certainly be averaging a top-10 finish. Outside of those two rough finishes, which mired him in 35th and 39th place results the last two seasons at Atlanta, Kes has traditionally been strong at the 1.54-mile Hampton, Ga. track.

In six total Sprint Cup races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, BK has two top-10 finishes, including a third-place finish in 2012 on the way to his Sprint Cup Championship. One year earlier, he finished sixth after starting in P14.

Last August, Brad qualified well, started second and ran near the front of the pack all day in the Oral-B USA 500 at AMS. He did make a mistake on pit road, overshooting his pit stall, but he worked through it and fought his way back to the top five. However, with less than 30 laps remaining, he got caught behind an indecisive Denny Hamlin, who cut his No. 11 in front of Josh Wise in the lapped No. 98 car to get to pit road. This forced Wise to check up, causing Brad to make critical contact with the No. 98 car, effectively ending his day.

He’ll hope for some better luck as he takes the No. 2 Detroit Genuine Parts Ford Fusion into the second event of the season. His Penske teammate Joey Logano had that good luck last week in Daytona, and rode it to a season-opening win in the Daytona 500 that has all but already secured Logano’s place in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Conditions have certainly been cooler this weekend than teams are accustomed to at the track nicknamed “Hotlanta.” This season marks the first time since the Cup Series cut from two visits to Atlanta down to one in 2011 that AMS has hosted a race this early in the season. Since the move to one race at Atlanta, that race has always been contested in the sweltering late summer. Previous to that change, AMS had hosted the fourth race of the year for several years, but never has Atlanta Motor Speedway held the second race of the season before.

Perhaps that explains some of the hijinks and strange happenings at the track over the course of this past weekend. First there was the case of the stolen cup car, when the unmarked trailer containing Travis Kvapil’s No. 44 car was taken from a hotel parking lot. The incident forced Kvapil and Team Extreme Racing to withdraw from the event. (the car was later found abandoned in the woods). Then on Friday, inspection issues forced 14 teams, including the No. 48, No. 24, No. 20 and No. 14 to miss qualifying for Sunday’s QuikTrip Folds of Honor 500.

Things calmed down a bit on Saturday, but the day wasn’t without some controversy. In a morning qualifying session, Brad was initially ruled to have won the pole for Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series Hyundai Construction Equipment 200 at AMS. But after tape of qualifying was reviewed by NASCAR, BK’s No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford F-150 was ruled to have crossed the start/finish line to start his pole-winning lap just seconds after the session ended, and the lap was disallowed. Of course, keeping with the strange circumstances of the weekend, BK found out about the disqualification while on the air for FOX Sports, making his debut as a guest analyst for the XFINITY Series Race. Later on Saturday, BK went on to start the NCWTS race from 10th in his Team BKR No. 29 truck, and finished 15th.

But while things have been going haywire elsewhere, the Team Penske Cup machines have been getting better throughout the weekend, which should make for a strong finish to the weekend on Sunday in Atlanta as both Brad and Logano seek to become just the fourth Team Penske Driver to take the checkered flag in Atlanta since Penske started competing there in 1972.

The weekend started slow with testing at Atlanta on Thursday, where the No. 2 was 22nd fastest in the first session and 21st in the second test session, Kes’ best time was a 29.806-second trip around AMS at an average speed of just over 186 MPH. But after some adjustments to the Black and Blue Detroit Genuine Parts Ford Fusion, the Deuce had even more speed in came out of Friday’s lone eighth-fastest with a time of 28.901 seconds at an average speed of 191.827 MPH.

BK went on to reach the final round of knockout qualifying at Atlanta, but finished 12th with a time of 28.965 seconds at at 191.403 miles per hour. He’ll start Sunday’s race from Row 6. Meanwhile, teammate Joey Logano remained red-hot and drove the No. 22 to the pole. Brad was 26th in Happy Hour final practice on Sunday at 29.907 seconds and 185.375 mph, but he enters Sunday’s race with his eyes fixed on earning his first win at Atlanta in the Cup series, and the knowledge that the speed exists in the Penske program to get him there.

Coverage of the QuikTrip Folds of Honor 500 begins at 12:30 p.m. ET Sunday on FOX with the green flag slated to fly at 1:16 p.m. ET

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While serving as a color commentator for Fox Sports 1’s coverage of the NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Atlanta on Saturday afternoon, Brad received word that, after further review, NASCAR ruled that BK’s No. 29 truck didn’t cross the start/finish line to begin the lap that wound up being the fastest before the end of the session. Instead he’ll start 10th.

While the starting spot is a bit of a setback for the No. 29 team, it will do little to deter Team BKR owner/driver Brad K, or his other driver, Tyler Reddick, who will start the Team BKR No. 19 right behind Brad in 11th. That’s because, despite the qualifying confusion in Atlanta, everyone involved in the two Brad Keselowski Racing Camping World Truck Series teams is thinking title in 2015 coming off a fantastic opening weekend at Daytona International Speedway.

At Daytona last Friday night, the 19-year-old Reddick gave BK his first ever win at Daytona in any capacity, in any series, when he drove the No. 19 Draw-Tite Ford F-150 to Victory Lane in the NextEra Energy 250. Right behind Reddick’s No. 19 in fourth place was the No. 29 of Austin Theriault, who had a strong run, with the No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford and was running second, competing with Reddick for a win right down to the final lap in a thrilling start to the season for both crews.

Reddick’s win got the No. 19 team off to an incredible start in their road toward the Camping World Truck Series driver’s title, and Theriault, who will split time with Brad, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney in the No. 29 has put that team in a solid position to start their run at earning Brad and Team BKR their first ever owner’s points championship.

“I feel good about where our program is going,” Brad said of his truck team. ” We’re making a lot of investments with the team and the company to be competitive and to be a top notch high caliber team that can win the championship year in and year out.  After Tyler’s win at Daytona it looks like it’s paying off right away.”

Now as the NCWTS circuit heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the first time in three years, Brad is already ready to lend his hand toward one of those goals as he will pilot that No. 29 for the Hyundai Construction Equipment 200, and look to give Team BKR a back-to-back to open the season.

After 61 unsuccessful tries over 10 seasons, Kes notched his first career Camping World Truck Series victory last season at Bristol Motor Speedway, and he hasn’t appeared in the series since. As he looks for truck victory No. 2, he’ll also be looking to capture his first victory in any series at Atlanta.

In three truck starts at the ATL track for his career, Brad’s best finish is 19th, which came in his last run at the 1.54-mile Hampton, Ga. intermediate track in 2007. He has six XFINITY Series starts at Atlanta, and he has logged four top-10 results, the best also coming in his last NXS start there in 2012. He has two top 10s in six starts in the Sprint Cup Series at AMS, but he finished 39th and 35th in his last two starts, leaving him thirsty for some success in Georgia.

This week, BK noted the unique challenges AMS will present to the No. 29 team.

I like the fact that Atlanta is a very slick racetrack and it’s just a fun place to race,” BK said. “You come in to put tires on and you are almost three seconds a lap faster.  A guy that will come in and pit one lap earlier than you do will gain almost half a straightaway on you. That puts pit strategy into focus and I have a lot of confidence in Chad Kendrick and everyone on the Cooper Standard team.”

Chad Kendrick, the crew chief of the No. 29 team, hasn’t paired up with Brad on the truck side since 2013, when Brad piloted the Draw-Tite Ford five times and tallied three top-10 results. Kendrick spent last season as the crew boss of the No. 29 team with Ryan Blaney as the full-time driver. The duo won once and finished in the Top 10 17 times in 22 races on the way to a second place finish in the NCWTS driver’s points standings.

Kendrick has served as a NCWTS crew chief three times at Atlanta, and his best result came in his most recent: a fourth-place finish in 2012. While Brad expressed his confidence in Kendrick’s abilities in the pit box, Kendrick also talked about how happy he is to have an experienced driver like Kes behind the wheel on a track like Atlanta.

“Tire management is important at Atlanta,” Kendrick says. “Brad knows how to manage his tires, how much to use at the front of a run to save towards the end of the run.  It’ll be up to us to manage wisely and not put all of our tires on too early and try to save a set for the end of the race and let Brad take advantage because he can make a lot happen.”

A lot has happened for the No. 29 already at Atlanta. BK turned 51 laps in the lone Camping World Truck Series practice session on Friday afternoon, including the fastest of 31.025 seconds at 178.695 miles per hour. He also had the fourth best 10 consecutive lap average, right behind Reddick who was third. Then in the final round of qualifying, Brad again turned a lead lap of 31.314 seconds at 177.045 mph, which he appeared to get in just before the session’s clock struck zero. But when NASCAR reviewed the tape, it showed that he was just inches short of the start-finish line when the clock struck zero and that lap was disallowed. Still Kes is confident in the speed of the No. 29 and looking forward to a great race.

“My expectation is it’s going to be a great race,” Brad said of the truck race during the XFINITY Series race coverage. “The trucks here really draft a lot and you’re going to see some dicing and all that great stuff that you see with the draft to try to get to the bottom or to the top, wherever the clear air is, and then the draft down the straightaways. I think you’re going to see a heck of a race. I’m a little bit nervous though because usually when you have two races in one day, if the first race is a little bit calm, the second race is a complete disaster. So hopefully we’ll get through all that.”

The 130-lap, 200.2-mile Hyundai Construction Equipment 200 will go green at 5:30 p.m. ET Saturday night under the lights at Atlanta Motor Speedway and all the action can be seen on Fox Sports 1.

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