The No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion driver led 10 laps and finished fourth in the FireKeepers Casino 400. BK had a look at passing race winner Joey Logano late in the afternoon at Michigan International Speedway, but he couldn’t quite clear the Team Penske No. 22, forcing him to settle for his seventh straight Top 10 finish.

“Frustrated. I thought we had a shot at winning this one. We had a really fast Miller Lite Ford and just couldn’t quite get the push I needed on the restart there to clear Joey,” Brad said afterward. ” I’m glad a Team Penske car won. Of course I wish it was our team. But in our hometown, to get a win for Ford, that’s really good too.”

Rolling to the green from the 15th starting position, Kes knew that sticking in the middle of the pack while driving a new, reduced downforce package could spell disaster. Swallowed up in the opening lap rush, the Deuce dropped a position to 16th before reeling the competition back in.

Lap eight saw him get around the Roush Fenway cars of Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Two laps later, Brad also managed to get by Jamie McMurray, and then on lap 31, he made quick work of Ryan Newman. Running idle on lap 32, activity was soon to begin on pit road as the crew chiefs formulated their race strategies.

By lap 42, all of the leaders made their way to pit road—except for Keselowski, allowing him to lead seven laps. Crew chief mastermind Paul Wolfe put the efficiency of his car to the test as he left it on the track longer than any others. Right as he crossed the stripe on the 46th lap, Brad reported that his fuel pressure instantaneously dropped to zero. The freak occurrence startled the driver, but he miraculously kept on motoring. Seconds later, and without a moment to spare, Martin Truex Jr. lost the handle of his No. 78 Furniture Row Toyota and spun out. The loop around sparked the first yellow flag of the day, and allowed Wolfe & Co. to service their machine, fitting it with four tires and a full tank of Sunoco racing fuel.

The post BK Hangs On for a Top 5 in Michigan appeared first on BradRacing.com | The Official Web Site of Brad Keselowski www.bk30beta.www.bk30beta.bradracing.com.

As the only wheelman in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series who hails from Michigan, a win in the FireKeepers Casino 400 will put him in elite company, alongside only seven active drivers to win in their home state.

“If we could win Michigan, it would be one of the biggest wins of my career — if not the biggest,” he says on the special track.

Even though Brad hasn’t yet pulled through for that milestone victory at Michigan International Speedway, he’s done everything but. A runner-up result and a pair of third place efforts solidifies him as a serious threat to the competition at the fastest track in NASCAR: a unique D-shaped two-mile superspeedway.

In his 13 MIS starts, not only has BK been around at the finish each time, but 11 of them ended up on the lead lap. The two exempted races, both in 2010, saw the Penske driver a total of four laps down. A track like Michigan is known for demanding every ounce of strength from the motor, the Goodyear Eagles and the driver’s grip strength, but completing 2538 out of 2542 total laps run is a definite shot in the arm.

His first Sprint Cup start in the Rolling Hills came in the second 2009 race, with the 24th place result to only be overshadowed by his win in XFINITY Series competition the day prior.

“Oh my God, I won at home! I’m speechless,” Brad said in the Winner’s Circle following his first of two NXS wins at Michigan. “I can’t believe it. I’m usually terrible here and to win here is a major accomplishment. It’s so cool to win in front of my hometown fans.”

The post Brad Eyes Dream Win at Hometown Track appeared first on BradRacing.com | The Official Web Site of Brad Keselowski www.bk30beta.www.bk30beta.bradracing.com.

But the real reason the shop means so much to me is the story behind it. It’s a story about despair and motivation. It’s a story about hope. And it’s a story about what happens when you believe in yourself, even naively, and do everything you can to persevere.

Sometimes, when you do that, you wind up in a place you could only have dreamed was possible.

THE SALE

This story begins in 2006, back when my family’s racing team, K Automotive, was broke and bankrupt. We’d had a sponsor the year before, but the sponsor didn’t pay what they’d promised they would pay during the off-season of 2005. Our debts were piling up, and things were looking pretty grim for my mom, dad, uncle, brother and me. We decided we weren’t going to run Daytona in 2006. We couldn’t afford it.

Then a benevolent friend of ours, who’s asked not to be named, stepped up and told us, “It would be a true tragedy if you didn’t run Daytona. An absolute tragedy.”

Literally a week before Daytona, he gave us the money to run the race.

So we drove down to North Carolina, and rented a motor from Doug Yates from Roush Yates Engines. A different friend with a tiny race shop in Moorfields, North Carolina, helped us put the engine in our truck, and we went down to Daytona. While we were there, we found a potential sponsor who made us a great offer. “Look,” he said, “if you guys run really well here in Daytona, I’ll sponsor you for the next two or three races.”

We were full of hope, just absolutely full of hope. All we needed was a good Daytona. A year earlier, we’d finished seventh. We could do it again. And if we did that, we could maybe keep the wheels on this thing and keep racing, stay in business, and even find a way to pay our bills down. Thinking back, it felt like the start of a late fourth quarter comeback in a football game. We had the ball in our hands, with a chance to win it all.

So the race comes, and we’re running on all that optimism, ready to make it happen. There was never more riding on a race in the history of my family’s team than there was that day. It was huge.

We wrecked out. A truck in front of me ran into someone. I got caught up in it, and that was it: the ultimate low of lows.

On the way home from Daytona, we stopped in North Carolina to drop the engine off. The next week’s race was in California, so we had two or three days to figure out our next move. We were out of money.

We did have one asset remaining that was worth a lot: our number. At the time, teams needed to finish in the top 35 over the course of the year to have a guaranteed position in the coming season’s races. There was a team out of Statesville, North Carolina, that had a rookie driver and a good sponsor, but because they were a new team, they didn’t have a guarantee. If they finished well in the first few weeks of the season, they could get it, but we were heading into Week 2. They were in a lot of trouble—not just for making that week’s race, but for the foreseeable future, however long it lasted.

So we decided to sell our number—and our guarantee—to them. They’d automatically have a guaranteed position for the year, and we’d have enough money to get to California, and keep things going. We’d lose our guarantee, but at that moment, we didn’t care. Nothing was guaranteed at that point.

I headed down to Statesville, to the shop that the team was based out of. I’d heard of the shop before. It was built for a guy who eventually wanted to run a Cup team out of it, but he wasn’t ready for the commitment. So he built it with the idea that it could be expanded if he moved up to Cup. When the original owner went out of business, he sold it to the team I was meeting with.

The shop was 20 or 30 minutes away from the tiny place where we were working. When I got there, I pulled in, then got out to look around. The shop was beautiful, around 35,000 square feet. Clean. Fully stocked. There were people everywhere working. Keep in mind, we only had three or four people working on my truck. They probably had 30, maybe 40, all dressed nicely. The trucks were brand new. The shop was vibrant with energy, hope, and optimism. It was like my dream personified, exactly the opportunity I wanted and was ready for.

And here I was, walking into it to sell my family’s truck rights to someone else.

Not long after, the deal was done. The rights were gone. A lot of that year was spent doing that, selling off assets that my family, my mom and dad and uncle, had worked to accumulate over the course of their entire lives. Selling that guarantee was really, really hard to do. I remember calling my dad on the flip phone I had at the time to tell him I’d done it. It was a hard phone call. He was really hurt.

I know it sounds kind of crazy to say this, but I wasn’t hurt. I really wasn’t. I was motivated. I remember feeling that all I needed was an opportunity to work the kinds of resources a shop like that had, and I would be successful.

I left there feeling really hungry to make it, and believing that if I worked hard enough, I would.

Two weeks later, our family’s team folded.

FULL CIRCLE

Life went on, and everyone knows the story now: I worked through some low level Cup teams, got on with Dale Jr., wound up making my way to Penske, and eventually, I found the success I believed I would.

I also built up my own truck team, and a couple of years ago, I decided I needed a new shop for it. Our space was around 10,000 square feet, and we were busting at the seams. I found a new place that was in foreclosure, but the bank was being difficult about completing the sale, and stalled things pretty badly. I couldn’t keep waiting. Then a new place came onto the market, and I went and looked at it.

It was the same shop where I’d sold the rights to K Automotive all those years before.

There’s a saying that you can’t go home again because when you do, everything looks different, and it’s not because it’s changed. It’s because you have. The shop had declined over the years, but not that much. Nothing significant was all that different. I’d seen a lot of amazing shops since 2006. (Penske has the most incredible shop in all of auto racing.) It simply wasn’t close to as nice as I remembered it being.

But I knew it could be expanded. And I figured that if I could get it for the right price, I’d buy it and build it out.

So that’s what we did.

We renovated the shop over the course of 2014, moved in the summer of 15, and then began the expansion, which just completed.

Our facility is 72,000 square feet. The floors are done perfectly with epoxy coating. The ceiling and walls are painted white, so it’s super bright in there. You can work in the shop without turning the lights on just from the natural light. It has snap on tool boxes, its own paint booth, and a ventilation system for fumes. The haulers can pull inside and operate without being out in the weather. The shop even has its own water recycling. It’s arguably the best shop in the second and third tier NASCAR series.

And during the whole process of building the shop out, I’ve realized a few things. The first is how far I’ve come, and how lucky I’ve been to have the people I have around me at Team Penske. Another is that I want to be able to provide the drivers and teams at BKR with everything I dreamed of having when I was 22. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do that now.

And finally, I honestly can’t believe the shop is mine. Because as much as I believed I would succeed when I was younger, I have a real appreciation now for how unbelievable it is, in some ways, that things worked out.

It’s something I’ll never forget—especially on the days when I step into the BKR shop, and get to work.

The post THE SHOP appeared first on BradRacing.com | The Official Web Site of Brad Keselowski www.bk30beta.www.bk30beta.bradracing.com.

In Friday night’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200, BK will pilot the No. 29 Ford F-150 representing Cooper Standard’s Careers For Veterans program. The race marks Kes’ second NCWTS run in the No. 29 this season. He won the Keystone Light Pole award in the Cooper Standard truck for the second race of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he was a serious threat to win. But a pit road miscue put him down two laps, ending his shot at a victory.

JOEY LOGANO AND TYLER REDDICK HAVE BROUGHT TEAM BKR TWO WINS IN FOUR NCWTS RACES THIS YEAR.

Two-time truck series champion and 2015 points leader Matt Crafton won that race, and has won two of the four Camping World Truck Series races this season. But the other two races have been win by Team BKR drivers: a season-opening victory by Tyler Reddick and the No. 19 team at Daytona, and a win by Joey Logano in the No. 29 machine in the third race of the season at Martinsville Speedway.

“To win two of the first three races was a pretty big step up from where we’ve been with this program,” Brad said. “I feel good about every race. We’re making a lot of investments to be a high-caliber team that can win the championship year in and year out.”

Due to those early-season results, Team BKR is in great standing entering the fifth race of the season. The No. 29 team, much thanks to Logano’s win, sits sixth in the Owner’s Points standings. Meanwhile, Tyler Reddick, the full-time driver of the No. 19 Ford, has his team second on both the driver and owner points leaderboard, trailing only Crafton.

Reddick, who will drive with Broken Bow Records on his No. 19 F-150 Friday night, is ready to build on his strong start at Charlotte—and he’s glad to have BK along for the ride around the tough 1.5-mile track.

“I understand that Charlotte is not your average cookie cutter mile-and-a-half quad oval,” Reddick says. “Turns 3 and 4 are very tricky and it’s very narrow getting off Turn 4. It’s all about entry into the corner. The track changes from daylight to nighttime. Having the experience and knowledge of my crew chief Doug Randolph and Brad Keselowski is invaluable because they can help you understand what happens with the transition of that racetrack from day to night.”

This will be Brad’s fourth consecutive year running in the NCWTS at Charlotte and Friday night’s race will be Brad 39th career race at Charlotte between NASCAR’s three series.

He has one win and three Top 10s in 11 Sprint Cup Series regular season starts. That lone Cup win at Charlotte came during the 2013 Chase for the Sprint Cup after he’d missed the Chase and that was his only victory of that 2013 season in the Cup Series. Additonally he’s competed in two Sprint Showdowns and five All-Star races at CMS with a second place finish in the Showdown and three All-Star Top 10s, including a second place finish during his 2012 Cup Championship season.

BRAD PLACED THIRD IN LAST YEAR’S NORTH CAROLINA EDUCATION LOTTERY 200.

In the XFINITY series, BK has three wins and 11 Top 10s in 15 races at Charlotte, in 2010, 2012 and 2014, his last race at Charlotte in that series. He also has made five Camping World Truck Series starts at CMS. He finished second there in 2012, crossed 14th in 2013, and last year he came in third at the track in his No. 19 Draw-Tite Ford.

As he takes the wheel this weekend, he’ll be looking for just his second victory ever in the truck series and he’ll attempt to grab it with a sponsor that is very close and important to him, Cooper Standard’s Career for Veterans program, which he has been a proponent of since its inception last year.

The program, initiated by one of Team BKR’s biggest allies, Cooper Standard, helps military members find roles in the workforce after they’ve completed their service.Brad drove with Careers For Veterans on the side of his Miller Lite Ford Fusion a week ago at Talladega Superspeedway, and is proud to represent the program and give it the recognition it deserves.

“Charlotte will be the first race that I’ve driven the Cooper Standard Careers For Veterans Ford F-150 and it’s an honor to support that program this weekend,” he said.

So far this weekend at Charlotte, Brad is doing the program. The 29 showed Top 10 speed in both practice sessions on Thursday, allowing BK to post the 10th-fastest times in both the first and second warmups, which were won by a pair of Cup-caliber drivers in Kasey Kahne and Erik Jones. Reddick’s No. 19 has been even quicker, running ninth in the first practice and fifth in the second. Setting the Team BKR pair up for a Fast Friday.

Qualifying for the 200-mile race is set for Friday evening at 5:45 p.m. ET and can be seen on Fox Sports 1.

Then comes the main event of the evening, the N.C. Education Lottery 200. The 134-lap race will go green around 8:30 p.m. ET Friday on FS1.

The post BK Set for Second Truck Start of 2015 appeared first on BradRacing.com | The Official Web Site of Brad Keselowski www.bk30beta.www.bk30beta.bradracing.com.

It’s hard to describe what it’s like arriving at Daytona itself. It has almost a first day back at school feeling. There’s turnover every year, kind of like a couple kids moving away. And of course, there are a few new faces every year, kind of like a couple new kids moved into town. You’re back with all the other drivers, your classmates. There’s a ton of anticipation, mainly because you’ve been preparing for the races all winter long. And this time out, after Kyle Busch had his crash on Saturday, you could sense fear in a lot of drivers, too.

Expectations for the week were high, especially for us. Daytona’s a restrictor plate race, and in our last restrictor plate race at Talladega, we’d won. To be honest, we felt like we could win every race we were in, and as it turned out, we were in contention to win all of them.

In the end, things didn’t work out in Cup or XFINITY. But in the truck series, I had one of the most thrilling, nerve-wracking experiences of my life.

For the first time ever, I won a race at Daytona, and it came as an owner.

TEAM BKR

It’s hard to explain the difference between winning as a driver, and winning as an owner.

As a driver, your responsibility is simple. You’re going to do whatever you can to win. You’re going to try and drive your best. And if you don’t win, there’ll be another opportunity another day.

As an owner, I get really nervous. When I think we have a shot to win, I start thinking about all the ramifications. You think of all the people you’re responsible for, and how much it would mean to them to end up in Victory Lane. Compared to being a driver, that burden is kind of overwhelming. When you do have success, it’s almost more of a relief. You’re happy and proud to see the members of your team do well.

But watching it all unfold is agonizing, at least to me. One of the things about truck racing that’s different from the other two series is that the race distance is a lot shorter. In some ways, that makes it tougher. If you have a team mistake — a loose wheel or a pit road violation, something like that — it’s very hard to recover. As an owner, there’s nothing fun about that.

A LOT GOES THROUGH MY MIND AS THE OWNER OF A TRUCK TEAM, WHETHER I’M DRIVING THAT WEEKEND OR NOT.

What makes owning a truck team especially stressful for me is that my family had a truck team growing up. I’ve spotted. I’ve crew chiefed. I’ve been an engineer, I’ve been a scorer. I’ve gone over the wall as a pit crew guy. I’ve had nearly every job you can have on a racing team except for working on the engine. And because I’ve done all these things, I see everything that’s happening with a critical eye: pit calls, setup calls, driver moves. I can’t help it.

So for that reason, I actually try and separate myself from the group during races. I don’t want to be a micromanager. I want my team to do its thing, and I want them to look for answers to challenges they face on their own. That’s how I’ve always learned. They have to learn racing lessons for themselves. I want to be supportive and to answer questions when they ask, ‘What could we have done better?’ But I want them to be the ones to ask.

There have been people with very successful truck teams in the past, but usually those teams have had older drivers who really have no chance of advancing to the other racing series. When it comes to my racing team, BKR, I have a very specific philosophy about the kinds of crew members and drivers we want, and what we’re trying to achieve. I’m looking for people with talent and the potential to get to Cup, and I want to help them get there. If the Cup Series is the NFL, I want my team to be Alabama. I want the best young players to come to BKR.

AFTER TWO AND A HALF SEASONS AT BKR, RYAN BLANEY GOT AN OPPORTUNITY IN THE CUP SERIES. THAT’S WHAT I WANT FOR OUR DRIVERS.

And the reason I want that is because of what I had to go through myself. I created BKR to be the image of what I would have wanted 10 years ago, but didn’t have.

When I first met with JR Motorsports in 2007, I was six feet tall, skinny, a big head of blonde hair and basically broke. I walked into their shop wearing a pair of old, unpressed khakis, a Polo shirt that was too big, and a pair of tennis shoes.

One of the guys on the team — I heard this story later — saw me sitting there, pointed to a friend, and asked, “Does that look like a racecar driver to you?”

Honestly, no, I didn’t, but I knew it. And eventually, I made them believe in me.

That kind of self-awareness — the ability to recognize what you need to make a team believe in you — is a quality I look for in my drivers. Because talent alone is not enough to grow. If a team believes in someone, the sky is kind of the limit. But once a team doesn’t believe in someone, it falls apart really quick. That’s one of the early lessons I learned in my career.

My truck drivers, Tyler Reddick and Austin Theriault, make their teams believe in them, and they do it in very different ways.

That’s the funny thing: they’re actually complete opposites. One is from Maine. The other’s from California. Their demeanor and attitude are complete opposites. So are their gifts as drivers. Tyler is just a natural behind the wheel, plain and simple. You can’t teach some of the things he can do in a race car. Austin, meanwhile, has a high-racing IQ with all the intangibles. He has a great work ethic. He studies hard. And he thinks about things — maybe almost too much — which is good. I love that about him.

We paired them together precisely because we want them to complement each other. My hope is that they’ll pick up a little of each other’s best qualities, drive each other to excel and improve, and one day, be competing in the higher series for championships.

THE WIN

When it came to the Daytona truck race, the NextEra Energy Resources 250, Team BKR showed exactly what we’re capable of.

Things started off well. Tyler and Austin qualified third and fourth respectively, and that strong qualifying effort — along with some great teamwork — put them into position to really kind of dictate the ebb and flow of the race. From there, they executed on the restarts and on the pit stops, and never gave up track position, which was impressive.

And when the big wrecks happened, they were in front of them all.

That said, there were a lot of wrecks in the race, and because of them, the race kept dragging on and on. I was dying. I just wanted it to be over. I made a joke on Twitter that I wished I was Adam Sandler in that movie “Click” so I could just fast forward to the end. You can’t help but think to yourself, “The longer this goes, the more opportunity there is for it to go wrong.”’

That’s really what was going through my head. That’s the downside of having seen racing from so many different angles. You start thinking about all the ways things can go south on you.

But they didn’t. We won.

When I was a kid and my dad won races, one of the most thrilling things was rushing to Victory Lane. My family and I would be sitting in the grandstands, maybe about 50 to 100 yards away from where the post-race trophy would be given. I can remember the feeling: How fast can we get to Victory Lane? I didn’t want to miss a thing.

That’s how it felt when they threw up the checkered flag, and Tyler raced across the finish line first. I had that same giddy feeling I had as a kid, and wanted to get to Victory Lane. Only there was a huge difference. I’d watched the race on the backstretch with Cooper Standard, one of our truck sponsors, and the backstretch at Daytona was literally the furthest you could possibly be from Victory Lane. How was I going to get there in time? We had to make a mad dash, which was made even more comical because I had mom and my girlfriend, Paige, with me. Paige is pregnant, and you can’t rush a pregnant lady. (You know how that goes.)

But we made it there along with a few hundred representatives of Cequent and Draw-Tite, the sponsor of Tyler’s race-winning truck. That’s one of the unique things about NASCAR. You don’t see a corporate sponsor hop onto a stage with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick after winning the Super Bowl. But in NASCAR if you sponsor a car, you’re taking pictures in Victory Lane with the driver and his pit crew. Needless to say, the Draw-Tite folks were pretty giddy, too.

As we celebrated the win, a lot of things went through my mind. My family has been racing at Daytona since the 1960s. This was the first race we’d ever won during that entire time. But it was about even more than that, too. It was a huge validation of our program, and hopefully, shows other prospects who are looking for an opportunity what they can accomplish as part of BKR. It also spoke directly to our sponsors about what we’re about, and signaled that they’re part of a winning team. And hopefully, it’s another step toward the future, toward securing our business, growing our drivers, and taking care of our employees and their families for a long time to come.

The post A Win at Daytona appeared first on BradRacing.com | The Official Web Site of Brad Keselowski www.bk30beta.www.bk30beta.bradracing.com.

Novi, Michigan based Cooper Standard, a leading global supplier of systems and components for the automotive industry, has been a primary partner of BKR since 2011. The BKR team, which fields multiple entries in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series including the No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford F-150, is owned by NASCAR Sprint Cup and NASCAR Nationwide Series champion Keselowski. Cooper Standard originally partnered with Brad Keselowski based on his Michigan heritage (Rochester Hills, Michigan-native) and the shared interests in assisting military veterans returning to civilian life. Brad Keselowski’s Checkered Flag Foundation strives to support those who have sacrificed greatly including military members and veterans.

The overall objective of the “Cooper Standard Careers for Veterans” program is to provide career opportunities for military veterans and those transitioning from active service. “We look at the ‘Careers for Veterans’ program as a means for Cooper Standard to let veterans know we are actively hiring and looking to recruit top talent that can positively impact our business,” said Jeff Edwards, Cooper Standard’s Chairman and CEO. “In many cases, military veterans possess unique skill sets acquired through their service to our country. Cooper Standard is one company where these veterans can put these skills to work. Brad Keselowski and BKR will help get this message out to the massive NASCAR audience, and many military families. We hope that Cooper Standard’s efforts and the visibility of the program through Brad and BKR encourage other companies to engage in similar programs.”

Keselowski, as well as Ryan Blaney, the driver of the No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford F-150, will help serve as spokesmen of the Cooper Standard program. The No. 29 BKR truck with Blaney at the wheel will feature a special “Cooper Standard Careers for Veterans” paint scheme that will take to the track at four (4) races in 2014 — Daytona (February 21st), Charlotte (May 16th), Kentucky (June 26th) and Michigan (August 16th).

The post Cooper Standard, BK Launch Veterans Program appeared first on BradRacing.com | The Official Web Site of Brad Keselowski www.bk30beta.www.bk30beta.bradracing.com.

Brad Keselowski Racing (BKR) announced today that the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team owned by the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series champion has signed one of its primary partners, Cooper Standard, to a contract extension.

“Cooper Standard has been with us from the very beginning and have become such an integral part of the BKR family,” said Keselowski. “Our team owes them a tremendous amount of gratitude for all of their continued support. Cooper Standard has been instrumental in helping us reach victory lane on multiple occasions, and I have no doubt this partnership with help our team take the checkered flag many more times to come.”

2014 will mark Cooper Standard’s fourth consecutive season with BKR and second campaign as a full-season partner. Cooper Standard, a leading global supplier of systems and components for the automotive industry, enhanced its 2011 and 2012 involvement with the team and currently serves as the primary partner on the No. 29 Ford F-150 with rising NASCAR star and Penske Racing driver Ryan Blaney behind the wheel. The Novi, Michigan-based company will continue its relationship with BKR as primary sponsor for all the 2014 Truck Series races on the No. 29, and Blaney will return to the team to compete for the 2014 Truck Series drivers’ championship.

“We are excited to continue our successful partnership with Brad Keselowski and the BKR team,” said Keith Stephenson, Chief Operating Officer of Cooper Standard. “The BKR program and Truck Series fit nicely into our business and have ultimately proven to be a rallying point for our company through both employee engagement and aiding with on-going customer relations. We are proud of our partnership with Brad and BKR, and we certainly look forward to continuing to be a part of the team’s ongoing success.”

About Brad Keselowski Racing (BKR):
Based in Mooresville, North Carolina and led by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series champion Brad Keselowski (@Keselowski), Brad Keselowski Racing (@TeamBKR) fields the No. 19 and the No. 29 Ford F-150 trucks in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. BKR, with the aim to provide young talented drivers the opportunity to improve their skills with a professional, competitive team, has also fielded entries in the ARCA Series and other developmental motorsport series. For more information, please visit www.BradRacing.com and www.TeamBKR.com.

About Cooper Standard:
Cooper Standard, headquartered in Novi, Mich., is a leading global supplier of systems and components for the automotive industry. Products include sealing and trim, fuel and brake delivery, fluid transfer, thermal and emissions and anti-vibration systems. Cooper Standard employs more than 22,000 people globally and operates in 19 countries around the world. For more information, please visit www.cooperstandard.com.

The post Cooper Standard To Continue on BKR No. 29 Truck appeared first on BradRacing.com | The Official Web Site of Brad Keselowski www.bk30beta.www.bk30beta.bradracing.com.

Brad Keselowski Racing (BKR) announced today that the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team owned by the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series champion has signed one of its primary partners, Cequent Performance Products (Cequent), to a multi-year contract extension.

Cequent, a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of a broad range of towing and trailer accessory products, has partnered with BKR since 2012 and is currently in the middle of an existing agreement with the race-winning team that runs through the 2014 season.  The new agreement takes effect in 2015 and will continue through 2017, during which time Cequent brands such as Draw-Tite and Reese will be featured as the primary sponsor on the No. 19 BKR Ford F-150 for at least ten (10) races each season.  Cequent will also continue to receive associate sponsor branding on the No. 19 entry for the balance of the races and be featured on the No. 29 BKR Cooper Standard Ford F-150 as an associate sponsor for every Truck Series race each season.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to continue our relationship with Cequent Performance Products,” said Keselowski. “Their unwavering commitment to BKR for the foreseeable future will help our racing program immensely.  Knowing we have Cequent’s full support is a key component toward BKR’s ultimate goal of winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship. Cequent partnering with BKR for what will be six years speaks to the strength of our relationship and how we as a team are able to deliver results for Cequent on the race track from an exposure and engagement perspective as well as help the company grow its business with key customers.”

Brad’s sentiments were shared by Cequent Performance Products President Tom Benson, who noted how much his company values the partnership.

“The Cequent Performance Products team and its brands, such as Draw-Tite and Reese, take great pride in announcing our multi-year commitment to Brad Keselowski and BKR,” said Benson. “This racing program elicits excitement from our employees and customers throughout the year and has given us the ability to form key relationships toward helping build our business. The partnership has become a part of Cequent’s identity, and we couldn’t be happier to continue our affiliation with Brad and his team.”

About Cequent Performance Products:
Cequent Performance Products is the industry’s largest manufacturer of trailer aftermarket / OE towing and trailer accessory products. Each product is engineered and tested to meet and often exceed the industry’s highest standards. Product focuses include vehicle specific trailer hitches, electric trailer brake controls, trailer breakaway systems, fifth wheel hitches, gooseneck hitches and couplers, trailer weight distribution systems, cargo management, custom designed and standard electrical harnesses, trailer jacks, and much more. Brand names include Bargman, Bulldog, Draw-Tite, Fulton, Hidden Hitch, Pro Series, Reese, ROLA, Tekonsha, Tow Ready, and Wesbar. Cequent Performance Products is a subsidiary of TriMas Corporation. For additional information, please visit www.CequentGroup.com.

About Brad Keselowski Racing (BKR):
Based in Mooresville, North Carolina and led by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series champion Brad Keselowski (@Keselowski), Brad Keselowski Racing (@TeamBKR) fields the No. 19 and the No. 29 Ford F-150 trucks in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. BKR, with the aim to provide young talented drivers the opportunity to improve their skills with a professional, competitive team, has also fielded entries in the ARCA Series and other developmental motorsport series. For more information, please visit www.BradRacing.com and www.TeamBKR.com.

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Brad takes the wheel of the No. 19 Draw-Tite F-150 for the EnjoyIllinois.com 225 at Chicagoland Speedway on Friday in his 58th career Camping World Truck Series race still seeking that elusive first win in the series, the only one of NASCAR’s big three in which he hasn’t been to Victory Lane as a driver.

“I am excited to get back in my own equipment this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway,” Brad said.

The race will be BK’s first Camping World Truck Series run ever at Chicagoland. Kes last compete in the Truck series on August 21st at Bristol and he was in contention for that first win there until the car in front of him on the restart stalled, creating a chain effect that caused the driver behind Brad to hit BK’s No. 19 in the rear and send it spinning, effectively taking him out of the running for a win.

Since that run by BK, 21-year-old Ross Chastain has been running the No. 19 machine and finished seventh the next week at Bowmanville, then was in pole position and led 116 laps, but finished second last weekend at Iowa Speedway.

The second place finish was one of two Top 5’s and four Top 10’s for Chastain in nine runs in the No. 19 truck this year. Brad has two Top 10’s in three races, ninth at Bristol and second earlier in the season at Kentucky. The No. 19 BKR team now sits fourth in the NCWTS owner points standings, 55 points back from first.

Entering Friday night’s race, BK believes the team has what it takes to finally finish a truck race in Victory Lane.

“We came close at Bristol, and Ross Chastain did an excellent job in the truck last weekend at Iowa Speedway,” Brad said. “I’m confident in this team, and we continue to grow stronger as an organization.”

Brad was by far the fastest in the opening practice session on Friday morning with a 176.08 mph, 30.667-second lap, but dropped down to sixth in practice and qualified 11th in the afternoon. He’ll start in the sixth row when the green flag drops for the Camping World Truck Series EnjoyIllinois.com 225, shortly after 8:30 p.m. EDT. The race can be seen live on FOX Sports 1.

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But as he sat in fourth place on a restart, Brad was just behind the wrong guy at the wrong time. Second place Matt Crafton’s No. 88 truck stalled on the restart, leaving Brad and his No. 19 Cequent F-150 with no place to go.

“In racing you have to have speed, execution and luck,” Brad said afterward. “We had two of the three and that’s not enough.”

With the No. 88 stalled in front of him, BK was contacted from behind and spun around onto the apron while the whole field passed him by. Following the caution, Brad restarted at the tail end of the lead lap in 13th and picked up four spots to finish ninth in his third Camping World Truck race of the season.

Afterward Kes lamented the unfortunate turn of events that cost him a chance to challenge Kyle Busch for the win.

“The truck in front of me ran out of gas and you’re not allowed to pass before the line. But I couldn’t have made the move even if I tried, it happened so quick,” he said. “When he ran out of fuel, I got hit from behind and instantly turned. At least it didn’t destroy my truck. But still with what it does to the tires, I didn’t really have a chance from there. But I guess that’s just racing.”

BK didn’t blame Crafton for what happened, in fact he said the incident is another example of a continuing problem in Truck series races on high-banked tracks like Bristol or Dover.

“The way the fuel cells are in the trucks, on banked tracks like this, they just don’t pick up the fuel,” he said. “So even if you have enough fuel, if you’re low on fuel it won’t pick it up and you run out of gas.”

Salvaging a ninth place finish kept BKR’s No. 19 truck in the sixth spot in the Owner’s Point Standings and was one of two Top 10s for Brad Keselowski Racing. BKR driver Ryan Blaney drove to a third place finish to pick up a spot into 7th in the Camping World Truck Series driver points standings.

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