BK rebounded to finish 12th, and although his career-best streak of 10 straight Top 10 finishes ended at the Sylvania 300, his standing in the Chase for the Sprint Cup actually improved.

“It was a heck of a rebound. I’m really proud of my guys today to come back and finish 12th,” Brad said afterward. “We moved on and got a solid finish that hopefully will make our Dover a little bit easier, so that was good.”

Despite the late setback, BK still finished ahead of numerous Chase contenders. Jamie McMurray, Paul Menard, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Clint Bowyer and Kyle Busch all finished behind Kes. The Team Penske driver sits in eighth in the Chase standings with a 16-point cushion on 13th place.

“It’s very frustrating,” Wolfe said. “We knew this (New Hampshire) was a strength of ours in this round, and to have an opportunity to get a win or a top five would have been huge, and take a little bit of the pressure off going to Dover. Yeah, we recovered to 12th and gained a few points and are not in terrible shape, but at the same time Dover’s been hit or miss for us, so it would have been nice to come out of here with a win or some more points.”

While Brad is in solid standing as the circuit heads to the final race of the Challenger Round, it looked, as Wolfe indicated, like he would be even better off. Kes qualified fourth for the Chase’s second race, and he was in second place behind Harvick, who led 216 of 300 laps before running out of fuel, for almost the entire afternoon.

He held strong in that fourth spot early until the leaders ran into lapped traffic around lap 20. Using that traffic, the No. 2 passed Carl Edwards and lap 24 and sped by Kurt Busch at lap 30 into second place. He set his sights on Harvick and the lead before the race’s first caution arose at lap 36.

The White Lite was one of the strongest machines on the track all afternoon, and crew chief Paul Wolfe fitted it with a slight wedge adjustment to tune it in early. After that and a two-tire stop, Brad was off in second place. He held off Busch and Denny Hamlin to keep second on the restart.

He nearly lost it on the next run after hitting fluid put down by Landon Cassill’s No. 40 car. Fortunately, he held on and kept second place again through restart No. 2 at lap 54. The third in a trio of quick cautions came shortly thereafter at lap 60, and the 2 Crew elected to keep Brad out on the track. He restarted second once again, and once again, he bested Busch and Jimmie Johnson to stay right there.

Finally, another long green-flag run followed. Brad weaved his way through traffic to keep pace with Harvick, as the No. 4 and the No. 2 drivers solidified themselves as the best of the afternoon. Yellow flag No. 4 flew when Alex Bowman hit the wall at lap 120, and the 2 Crew put together a solid 13.0-second four-tire stop to allow Brad to keep second place.

This time on the restart at lap 126, Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave Brad all he could handle, but like others before him, Dale Jr. eventually bowed out, and BK kept that second position. From there, Brad was off to the races. He completed his fastest time of the afternoon to that point at lap 129, traversing the 1.058-mile oval in just 28.686 seconds

That blazing lap time came even after the White Lite shared some contact with Junior’s No. 88 Chevrolet on the restart. As the run went on, it impacted performance a bit, but fortunately, a caution came quickly. At lap 157, Chase hopeful Kyle Busch took a major blow, as his No. 18 Toyota hit the wall to bring out caution No. 5.

While it hurt Busch’s postseason hopes, it allowed the 2 Crew to fix the minor damage and swap out the White Lite’s right-side tires. Brad nearly saw his own postseason hopes take a hit on this stop. He had a near-miss with Casey Mears’ No. 13 car on pit road, and the incident dropped BK to third off pit road. But that bad luck was instantly reversed, when Edwards pulled his gas tank out of his pit box, resulting in a penalty for the No. 19 team, and a P2 restart for the No. 2 team.

This time around, Brad had to best the eventual race winner, Matt Kenseth, on the restart. He did it after a tough battle, and remained in second place until a caution at lap 192 threw off the field’s strategy.

BK and Co. called for four tires, while six drivers—Kenseth, Johnson, Joey Logano, Earnhardt Jr., Bowyer and Tony Stewart—took two. Brad, meanwhile, was the second car on four tires after Harvick. But he made a move on this restart that put him in position to win.

Brad beat out Harvick to take sixth place on the lap 197 restart, making his the first car on four fresh tires. From there, BK made it past Stewart, Johnson and Logano to third place at lap 201, just in time for caution seven, brought out by a wreck involving Danica Patrick at lap 205. Another caution came quickly at lap 211, and Brad pitted for fuel only, his eyes on a fuel mileage win.

Eight drivers elected to stay out, and BK was the first off pit road, putting him in ninth for the restart. He quickly jumped out to sixth after the green flag, and he passed Stewart five laps later to make it back to the Top 5. On this run, Brad moved to fourth and was playing a fuel mileage game with Harvick, who also pitted for fuel on the last stop. Kes was saving while Harvick wasn’t, and this move made a tremendous difference at the end of the race.

Justin Allgaier hit the wall at lap 236, and Brad didn’t pit, sending him to second place for the restart that changed everything. Kes restarted next to Greg Biffle, and after a side-by-side battle, he eventually settled into second place. But while the battle was taking place, NASCAR was reviewing the restart and eventually decided to black flag Brad for a restart violation.

The No. 2 team was more than displeased with NASCAR’s call, which Wolfe explained in detail afterward.

“It depends how you look at it,” Wolfe said. “We did leave the zone, I guess, before the 16 (Biffle) but the 16 looks like he checked up there right at the end. So I don’t know how they’re calling it. No denying we left the zone first, and it looked like we accelerated, but it seemed like right at the same time he checked up, because they were running in the back of him. So that’s the part where it’s frustrating to call that. If they looked at it, you would see the 16 checked up.”

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Followers of the 2 Crew: You can now download new images to change your Facebook and Twitter profile and header images, as well as your iPhone 6 background image. Show your support for Brad as he looks to traverse the tough Chase for the Sprint Cup slate, and earn the chance to compete for a championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway this November.

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With a fast No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion, BK just missed capturing his fourth career NHMS pole award. He was third quickest in Friday’s opening practice and kept the Deuce near the top of the board throughout qualifying. Then with a time of 27.666 seconds, he briefly topped to board in the final round, only to set for a fourth place finish, locking him into a second-row start for Sunday’s Sylvania 300.

“I thought we were going to get the pole after the second round, the car was really good,” Brad said after his qualifying run. “In the last round, just didn’t quite put the lap together, but still a great effort from the Miller Lite Ford. In the spring we qualified 10th here and we were able to drive to the front. I feel we’ll be really strong again. So I’m just proud and ready to get going.”

Even more important than adding to his impressive track record at Loudon, Brad is out to improve his standing in the Chase for the Sprint Cup in the second of 10 postseason races.

BK started the Chase last weekend with an eighth place finish at Chicagoland Speedway, which also extended his personal best Top 10 streak to 10 straight races. The No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion driver spoke this week about how another Top 10 finish could all but sew up a spot in the Contender Round.

“It is good to come into this race knowing that a Top 10 will likely move us to the Contender Round,” Brad said. “We want to win—we always want that first and foremost, but what we learned from last year’s Chase is that Top 10s will get you to Homestead, and that is the ultimate goal. We’ll make the most of the day and if we have a shot at the win, we’ll take it.”

Kes currently sits ninth in the Chase standings, but with two races remaining—this week at Loudon and next week at Dover—anything can happen. Fortunately, NHMS is one of BK’s very best tracks.

Of his 12 career Cup Series races at Loudon, Kes has finished in the top 10 eight times. That includes five Top 5s and one victory, which came last summer. He has led a total 343 laps at NHMS in the Cup Series, the fourth most at any track for his career.

In his last race at New Hampshire, the 5-Hour Energy 301 in July, the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford finished second after starting 10th. That was the eighth consecutive finish of 11th or better at Loudon for Brad.

“We probably had a winning car that day, but things just didn’t go our way,” Brad said. “New Hampshire has been a good track for us.”

In last year’s Chase event at Loudon, Brad captured the Coors Light Pole Award but finished seventh. That marked his third pole position at New Hampshire, with the two others coming in 2013 and 2010. His fourth-place start on Sunday will be his sixth in the Top 10 at the 1.058-mile oval.

The 2 Crew will have two more practice sessions to tune up the White Lite on Saturday morning, first at 9 a.m. and later in Happy Hour final practice starting at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Sunday’s main event, the Sylvania 300 will go green shortly after 2 p.m. ET and the race will be broadcast on NBC Sports Network.

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Miles is known for being aggressive when needed, and that gets proven twice a year when the Sprint Cup Series comes to visit the Dover International Speedway. Getting some drivers upset is nothing new to Miles, nor Brad.

The balance of aggression, revenge, and concrete magic for Konkrete Keselowski.

Miles also does a great job at seeking revenge when needed. And it’s like Brad has been taking lessons from Miles since BK’s emerge on the national scene. Encountering rivalries with top level drivers like Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch and several others, Brad knows how to serve a good payback — one that usually involves a bumper, and often a safer barrier.

But most important of all of them, Brad might as well be made of concrete! Often regarded as Konkrete Keselowski (by myself, at least…) Brad has quite the skill and finesse to excel at the challenging and demanding concrete surfaced race tracks. Finding his first three NASCAR Nationwide series wins at the tracks in Nashville, Bristol, and Dover, it appeared Keselowski might be a concrete ace of sorts. In a returning trip to Nashville two years later, Kes clicked off another concrete win. The Sprint Cup results have been nothing short of spectacular when Brad hits concrete, as he owns two Bristol wins along with a lone Dover victory. And we can’t overlook the breakthrough Truck Series win at Bristol, either.

Sounds like a perfect fit to me. The balance of aggression, revenge, and concrete magic for Konkrete Keselowski. Plus, Brad has already been able to meet the good side of his favorite monster twice already, and I think a third trip is in the near future!

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BK and the No. 2 team responded from a lap 193 spin and nearly came back to take their third straight checkered flag, as Brad held the lead with less than 40 laps to go. But the incident ultimately left the White Lite just shy of winning speed as Brad was passed by Kevin Harvick and teammate Joey Logano on a late restart and shuffled back on the final green-white-checkered restart, relegating him to a seventh-place finish.

But while Kes came up short in his bid for his first ever three-race win streak, his Penske teammate Logano parked his No. 22 in victory lane, locking both Penske drivers into the Contender Round of the Chase. Sitting in first place, one point ahead of Joey in the standings, Brad is thrilled with Penske’s prospects early in the postseason, but his sights remain firmly set on the next eight races.

“It’s great for everyone at Team Penske,” Brad said. “We certainly have a lot to be proud of, but there’s still a lot of work to do.”

While it was Logano who ended up in the Winner’s Circle, it looked all weekend like a third win in-a-row might have been on its way for BK. Kes was fastest in the first two practice sessions and was second to Jeff Gordon in the final trial run. He was first in Round 1 of qualifying at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and he shattered the track record with a time of 27.090 seconds to claim his fifth Coors Light Pole Award of the year—more than any other driver.

From that P1 starting position, Brad held the lead in Sunday’s Sylvania 300 for the first 35 laps until a NASCAR-mandated competition caution flag flew. He reported to crew chief Paul Wolfe that he was free all over during that first run, and headed down pit road for a four-tire stop, while the majority of the field replaced just right-side tires.

As a result, Kes dropped from first to 15th. On the ensuing restart, he avoided what spotter Joey Meier called a “hornet’s nest” as the field around him bottled up, causing him to cautiously drop to 22nd. Finally, as the competitors settled into a single-file line, BK let the Deuce’s speed in traffic show. Over the green-flag run, the machine’s handling improved and he moved his way past Kasey Kahne, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and many others to 11th place by lap 96. A second caution came at lap 105 for debris, and a swift four-tire stop from the 2 Crew had Brad off pit road three spots up in P8.

He worked his way to sixth on the following run before another caution for debris signaled a turning point in the race. The Lap 171 caution was just the race’s third yellow, but 12 more flew before the end of the race. In total, there were 15 cautions, a season high. Brad brought the sixth yellow flag out at lap 193, when he got loose and spun while trying to pass Matt Kenseth on the bottom of The Magic Mile.

The No. 2 took some minor damage upon hitting the wall, but made no contact with other vehicles, and the 2 Crew was able to make necessary repairs on pit road.

Another caution flew at lap 201, and Kes went down pit road again for four new tires and adjustments, dropping him to P22. This set the No. 2 team up for a race-changing move at lap 210. 

While others went with fresh tires, Kes went down pit road for just a splash of fuel and came off in fourth, back in contention for the win. At lap 227, Brad took the lead for the second time in the race after making a pass of Brian Vickers—just 34 laps after spinning out and hitting the wall. He held the lead for 78 of the race’s 303 laps.

Brad held that lead through another trio of restarts and ran in first with Logano second and Harvick third for a reset at lap 268. It was then that he battled hard with Logano for the lead, allowing Harvick to shoot past the Penske pair and into P1. 

Logano ended up taking the top spot on the next restart, while Brad fell to third. The race came down to a green-white-checkered finish with a top three of Logano, Harvick and Kes. On this last reset, Logano burst to the lead, while Harvick had a poor start. Behind Harvick’s No. 4, Brad was shuffled back to seventh and left without any time to make up ground for the finish.

After winning the last two races, the P7 result was a letdown for BK, though he came away proud of the efforts of Wolfe and the 2 Crew to keep the White Lite within reach of the lead despite a wild afternoon.

“We had a lot of adversity. I made a few mistakes that got us behind, but (crew chief) Paul Wolfe and the crew did a great job of getting us back in position,” Brad said. “It was kind of an up-and-down day and I guess we ended on an OK note. We finished seventh, but I was definitely looking for more than that. We fought hard and it was a good, solid day.”

With a combined nine wins, Team Penske’s Keselowski-Logano duo has as many trips to victory lane as any other three drivers combined, and are the only two Cup drivers with more than three victories on the season. They also are tied for the lead with 12 Top 5 results apiece. Kes holds a one-point lead on Logano in the standings, though the points will be reset after next week’s elimination race.

NEXT UP

The Penske duo is locked into the Contender Round of the Chase, while the rest of the field will be scrambling for a win or at least a strong finish at the treacherous Monster Mile in Dover next week.

But as Brad showed through his hard racing at Loudon, he will still be driving with a victory on his mind in next week’s AAA 400. Team Penske vice chairman Walter Czarnecki reiterated that message after Sunday’s race.

“Somebody (said to) me a minute ago, ‘This must make you feel pretty good, both cars advancing to the next round.’ I said, ‘Let me tell you something about this group: We’re worried about Dover right now.’ That’s our intent – one race at a time, and that’s how we’ll proceed.”

BK will enter Dover particularly hungry for a win after finishing second at the Delaware track earlier this year. Brad has one win, three Top 5s and one pole award at the track over his NSCS career.

Qualifying time is set for 3:40 p.m. EDT Friday. The AAA 400 will go green shortly after 2 p.m. ET Sunday and will be broadcast on ESPN.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Logano pulls away to win Sylvania 300 (Charlotte Observer, Sept. 21, 2014)
• Logano wins Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire (SBNation, Sept. 21, 2014)
• Logano wins in New Hampshire, advances in Chase (USA Today, Sept. 21, 2014)
• Logano beats Penske teammate to win second Chase race (Sporting News, Sept. 21, 2014)

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The 2012 Cup champion is already locked into Round 2, which begins with the postseason’s fourth race at Kansas Speedway, no matter how he finishes at New Hampshire or Dover over the next two weekends. But despite his enviable situation, he still has every intention of setting a career high with his sixth win of the season Sunday, and building on his already massive wave of momentum.

“It felt good coming into the Chase as the top-seed, and it feels very good to know that we’ve advanced to the next round with two races to go,” Brad said. “We have good momentum right now, and we know that we have to keep developing the car and pushing as a team, whether it’s on pit road, handling, spec or driver tactics. We’re just going to stay focused, keep working and see what happens.”

BK achieved his win last week at Chicago with the most impressive move of the 2014 season—a pass that has been dubbed “The Split”. Late in the race, Kes saw Kevin Harvick and Kyle Larson battling hard for the race lead, and in a bold move, he ran his No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion between Harvick’s No. 4 and Larson’s No. 42 to take the top spot, which he held through the checkered flag.

That triumph came one week after he led more than 95 percent of the laps at Richmond for his fourth win—the most of any regular season in his career. The win in the Windy City the following week matched the win total of his championship season (five), and it was the first NSCS back-to-back of his career.

As impressive as the last two wins have been, Brad will be looking more into his third win of the season heading into Sunday’s Sylvania 300. At Loudon in July, Brad led 138 of 305 laps in a No. 2 Redd’s Apple Ale Ford Fusion that was so strong it restarted from deep in the Top 10 and charged to the front of the pack on six different occasions. That decisive victory has the 2 Crew feeling great about its chances in run No. 2 at Loudon.

“Looking ahead to this weekend, the Miller Lite Ford was strong here earlier this year so we will do our best to keep that going,” BK said.

Even the often-stoic No. 2 crew chief, Paul Wolfe, was beaming about the Deuce’s prospects at The Magic Mile. 

“We are looking to build off the strong performance we had at the summer race at Loudon,” Paul said. “On top of that we’ve managed to string a couple of wins in a row which gives us momentum, confidence and the ability to be aggressive this weekend.”

He has every reason to be confident. Not only was Loudon kind to the team this year, but it has been one of Brad’s best tracks historically. He has one win, four Top 5s and six Top 10s in 10 Cup appearances at the track. Kes also boasts a pair of Nationwide wins in New Hampshire.

Additionally, Kes leads the field this season in average start position (7.2), passes under green (1,817) and laps led (1,340). A strong driver backed by a team that has consistently built fast cars, Wolfe says, puts the 2 Crew in excellent shape.

“As I thought about it today, the key for us is that we have speed in our Miller Lite Ford Fusions,” Wolfe said. “Having that speed gives us the ability to overcome adversity and to be competitive each week. Right now this team is in good shape, and I feel good about what is ahead.”

Last week’s win was No. 401 in Team Penske history, and it made Brad the winningest driver in team history. Kes will start his quest for No. 402 in excellent position. He was the fastest in the field at the first practice Friday morning with a time of 27.516 seconds. Brad followed that up by breaking the track record in the first round of qualifying with a speed of 139.614 mph and time of 27.281 seconds.

In the final round, Kes again crushed his own time, running at 27.090 seconds to win the Coors Light Pole Award for the fifth time this season. It’ll be his 12th front-row start of the season.

He’ll have two final practice sessions Saturday at 9 and 11:30 a.m. ET, which will air on FOX Sports 1.

ESPN’s pre-race show for the Sylvania 300 begins at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, with the green flag expected to wave at 2:15 p.m. ET.

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