Kes earned a spot as one of the Championship 4 alongside Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick, giving him a shot at his second title at the Monster Energy Cup Series level. Unfortunately, his White Lite didn’t have the speed to contend with the Toyotas of Truex and Busch as he finished seventh in the Ford EcoBoost 400 to finish fourth—the second-best finish of his Cup career.

“We ran as hard as we could and put it all out there and just basically didn’t have enough speed,” Brad said. “On the mile-and-a-halfs, we weren’t as good as the 78 and 18 and those guys. This last race coming down to a mile-and-a-half didn’t particularly bode well for us, but my team ran as hard as they could run. They made some great calls—Paul Wolfe and everybody and put ourselves in position every chance we could to make the most out of the opportunities that existed without just being lightning fast, but it wasn’t there.”

BK qualified fifth for the final race of the 2017 season, though Kes knew coming in that his Ford couldn’t match the Toyota muscle on mile-and-a-half tracks. Right from the start, BK and Wolfe went off sequence. A caution flag flew just six laps into the day, and Wolfe called his driver to pit road while the leaders stayed out.

Brad restarted 13th at lap 10 and used his fresh tires to carve through the field to second place. He finished the first stage in the second position, first among all remaining championship contenders.

As the sun set, the Miller Lite Ford swung loose, causing Brad to slip to fifth place—a microcosm of the race for the No. 2 team, as they never quite had the speed to make it stick up front.

“We’ve just got to be faster,” BK said. “We can’t show up and be that far behind on the mile-and-a-halves. We know that. That Toyota car is a good ways in front of us and we’ve got to figure that out.”

At lap 122, Brad pitted from fifth, and fourth among championship drivers. On this cycle, Wolfe elected to short-pit, an action that brought the rest of the field on to pit road. Kes was holding strong in the top-five when Danica Patrick hit the wall at lap 142, bringing the field to pit road. Wolfe’s fitted Brad with a short-run setup on with 10 laps to go in Stage 2, helping him charge his way to fourth with a strong restart. However, he couldn’t hold off Busch toward the end of the run and he finished the second stage in fifth.

Kes restarted seventh for the final 100 laps but was bottled up, causing him to fall to 11th on the restart. He worked his way back to ninth before pitting under green at lap 198. The 2 Crew helped vault him to sixth when the field cycled, where he remained when the season’s final caution flag flew at lap 229.

The 2012 Cup Champion restarted seventh for the final 34 laps, but he didn’t have the power to advance over the closing laps, settling for a seventh-place finish while Martin Truex Jr. won his first MENCS title.

“You’re always gonna be disappointed when you don’t win the championship here, but I’m not disappointed in the effort,” Brad said. “There was a lot of great effort from my whole team and that’s something I was proud of.”

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BK’s great speed led to a second-place finish at Martinsville, and strong execution earned him another Top 5 the following week in Texas. In Phoenix, the speed wasn’t there, but the 2 Crew was fortunate as  Kes’ top rivals in the Cup standings bowed out due to wrecks, sending the team to the Ford EcoBoost 400 as one of four drivers competing for a championship.

“We probably had some really solid execution last week in Texas, great speed at Martinsville and luck [at Phoenix]. You know, if you put all three of them together on any given day, you can win,” Brad said. “We haven’t done that in the Round of 8, but we had one of each in all three races, and that put us in position to be here.”

A strong start to the 2017 season gave Brad a strong foundation of playoff points, essentially granting him that fourth-place spot all the way through the postseason. He breezed through the Round of 16, won at Talladega to advance through the Round of 12 and used a cocktail of speed, execution and luck to survive the Round of 8.

He’s joined by Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick. The two Toyotas of Busch and Truex have been the fastest machines in NASCAR all season long. BK is well aware that he isn’t the favorite, but the Team Penske driver is relishing the underdog role.

“Whenever there is a championship on the line, there’s pressure,” BK said. “On the other side, there’s not a lot of self-inflicted pressure when you know you’ve been running fourth or fifth all year and you’re probably going to need to win that race.”

Brad’s three Championship rivals all will bring momentum into Homestead. Harvick is fresh off an impressive win in Texas, Busch won the week prior at Martinsville, and Truex dominated the first three 1.5-mile events in the Playoffs, winning at Chicago, Charlotte and Kansas. However, BK isn’t worried about who’s hot and who’s not going into the winner-take-all season finale.

“I think momentum and Homestead is overrated. If you look at last year I would have said the guy with the least momentum (Jimmie Johnson) won it all. I’m not too caught up on that,” Kes said. “I’m excited about how we ran at Texas. I know that we’re bringing the same car build to Homestead, so probably a little more thrilled about that and I would look at Texas as being more of the momentum to Homestead than I would Phoenix.”

While BK’s No. 2 Miller Lite Ford might not have the mile-and-a-half prowess of its Toyota counterparts, it has a driver who knows how to perform when a title is on the line. This will be Brad’s first Championship 4 appearance since the alteration to the Cup postseason, but he’s gone to Homestead to race for a championship before in 2012, and when he did, he came home with the crown.

“This will be our first opportunity to go down there to race for one,” No. 2 crew chief Paul Wolfe said. “Brad has been able to do some amazing things when there’s something on the line like this.”

The White Lite will roll out for practice Friday at 1:55 p.m. ET before qualifying at 6:15 p.m., both to air on NBCSN. CNBC will carry Saturday’s first practice session at 10 a.m., while the 1 p.m. session will air on NBCSN. Finally, the 2017 MENCS champion will be crowned Sunday. The Ford EcoBoost 400 will go green at 2:30 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on NBC.

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