I want to congratulate Brad Keselowski on another incredible run Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway. What this young man has done over the last few weeks has been nothing short of incredible. You go back to the end of July and he wasn’t even in the Top 20 in points and not a Chase contender. Fast forward to today and Brad is a lock for the Chase and probably the hottest driver on the circuit.
Nobody can point to the exact reason this team caught fire. What I do find interesting is if you look, it all started after his wreck during testing at Road Atlanta. Now back in the day, when I was starting to make my mark, people would joke that after I would have a hard hit that it didn’t knock me out. They would laugh and say it did just the opposite — it knocked me conscious.
I wonder though if sometimes with a young, aggressive driver, which we know Brad is, who is racing every lap like it’s the last lap without any care to the risk that an injury doesn’t actually help in the long run. While the injury slows you down a bit, you learn about risk/reward and learn to pick your battles better. It actually makes you adjust your driving and as we have seen with Brad, the numbers he has been putting up since the wreck have been spectacular.
I also think part of it is how drivers are wired up. Drivers are competitors. We want to win and win at everything. I don’t care if it’s racing at Bristol, a round of golf or simply playing checkers — drivers are competitors and they want to win. So overcoming this injury was a challenge to Brad.
Now Brad is a great young man. He is charismatic, has a lot of pride and comes from a great racing family. So I think Brad actually challenged himself to see what he could do while injured. Well, as he has shown everyone since Pocono, he is more than up to the challenge.
You also can’t discount the internal challenge of being at Penske Racing. When he joined them, he naturally knew in the beginning that he was playing second fiddle to Kurt Busch. Kurt is a past champion, a veteran now of the sport and obviously Penke’s lead driver, so Brad saw that as a challenge too. Again, drivers are competitors. Drivers are winners. Being second to anyone simply doesn’t compute to them. So you have to assume that Brad also saw that as a challenge to equal or beat Kurt out as Penske’s top driver.
One of the biggest assets Brad has is his crew chief, Paul Wolfe. I am a big fan of Paul’s. I always thought he was a really smart crew chief. Last year in the Nationwide series you really saw how the combination of Brad and Paul could pay dividends when they brought home the 2010 championship. To me, moving Paul up to the Cup series to work with Brad there too was a no-brainer. Once again, we are seeing the results of those two working together.
Back in June at Kansas you saw them work together to win the race. Paul made the call to stay out, which was gutsy, while Brad did his part to conserve fuel. You then move on to Pocono where Paul had the double-whammy of Brad being injured, not knowing if he could go the full race and incoming bad weather.
Paul really went out on a limb pitting Brad, knowing that the rain was coming. He pushed all his chips to the center of the table that day hoping and praying that the rain would eventually stop and the race would restart. That one paid off too. The race restarted with Brad on the front row and he drove off and left Kyle Busch. That win was also significant because in that one race, Brad went from outside the Top 20 in points and not in the Chase to in the Top 20 in points with a wild-card spot pretty much locked up. All this was only four days after a nasty wreck at Road Atlanta.
Their summer hot streak has shown no indications of slowing down anytime soon. Saturday night at Bristol the guys found an advantage with their pit selection and didn’t hesitate to use it. Now I know there has been some controversy this week from some of the critics about why NASCAR let this happen. No one took advantage of it last Wednesday night in the Camping World truck series race. Friday night during the Nationwide race it didn’t happen either.
Now the Cup boys study this stuff and turn it almost into a science. So Brad’s bunch knew exactly where that timing loop was. They knew how much room they had to play with. They also knew how fast they could go in-between the two timing loops. Brad’s bunch used that knowledge to their full advantage to help win the race.
Sometimes you hear folks complaining about why NASCAR changes the rules sometimes. The answer is simple — they have to. If they don’t, these drivers and teams will eat their lunch. Trust me, I have 30 years of experience in this. When handed the rule book, while we read over what it did say, the key was to find what it didn’t say. You looked for the gray areas that weren’t addressed in rule book to see if there was an advantage to be had.
That’s why I always tell folks we were never rule breakers, we were actually rule makers. We’d find a loophole that we could use to our advantage for awhile. NASCAR would come along and close the loophole. Then you would simply begin again looking for a gray area that might give you an edge over the other guy.
It’s no different today or what you saw at Saturday night at Bristol. If you noticed, Matt Kenseth took the same advantage. Later that night Brad was in the perfect position, he got by Jeff Gordon and a couple guys, got the lead and never looked back. So Brad and Paul are as good a combo as any driver/crew chief up and down pit road right now.
This is going to pay such huge dividends once they get into the Chase. Now how they get into the Chase is a really intriguing storyline that I am going to be following closely. If Brad makes the Chase via the wild-card slot, he does not get the bonus points for his three wins so far. Only the guys in the Top 10 in points following Richmond get any bonus points for any wins during the regular season.
Now if in these next two races Brad can make up the difference and get into the Top 10 it does two things. First, naturally he will be awarded the bonus points. Kyle Busch has four wins, while Kevin Harvick and Brad currently have three wins. When they reset the Chase competitor’s points starting at Chicago, just look how much a factor Brad’s wins will play in where he starts the Chase in points.
Now the other thing it does, if Brad makes the Top 10, it opens up what is currently his wild-card spot to another competitor. With his one win and where he is in points, Denny Hamlin currently has the other wild-card spot. If Brad moves up, that opens the door to Paul Menard and David Ragan to fight it out for that last Chase spot.
Some might say with his inexperience of ever being in the Chase that Brad is a dark horse for the championship. Some are also saying that Brad is peaking too soon and will have nothing left in the tank by the time Chase starts. I don’t agree with either position. With the chemistry he and the team have, with the momentum they have, I really believe they are a team the other 11 will have to fight to win the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.
I am also really happy for team owner Roger Penske. He’s obviously a legend in auto racing but has never really experienced the same level of success in NASCAR as he has in other series. Last year, winning the NASCAR Nationwide title was a really big deal. I know from talking to Roger and Brad, not only what it meant to Roger but also what it meant to Brad to be the driver that accomplished it for Roger.
The other thing I hope they don’t do is put Brad back in that Nationwide car. Obviously after the injury at Road Atlanta, Brad had to step out of the car. That allowed time not only for his body to heal, but really it also let him focus on strictly one thing — his Cup car. Roger has other drivers in the wings that can finish the season in that Nationwide car. As hot as that No. 2 Cup car is, I wouldn’t change a thing and let the focus be on only one thing, winning the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.
The other great thing to see Saturday night was guys having great runs that we don’t talk about every week. Martin Truex Jr.’s team made a great two-tire call in the pits. It got him track position and a great second-place finish. Even though he finished fourth a couple weeks ago at Watkins Glen, Saturday night’s second place was Martin’s best finish since 2007. So I was really happy for Martin.
While Jeff Gordon dominated the Bristol race, he came home in third position. He’s had a very competitive car week after week. In the last six races, Jeff has led 317 laps. While he does have two wins this season — Phoenix and the first Pocono race — as of late he unfortunately hasn’t been able to close the deal on more wins.
As we always tell you though, if you put yourself in position to win a race consistently, then the wins will come. Jeff’s got that consistency now and if you pair that up with some wins in the Chase, look out. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Jeff and his teammate battle it out right down to Homestead for the championship?
I was also very happy for Jamie McMurray Saturday night. I have told you many times before how much of a fan of his I am. Unfortunately they have not been able to have anything close to the season they enjoyed last year. Saturday night’s fifth-place finish gave a little more hope that things are turning around for them. That was their second Top 5 finish in the last five races, so that is positive. Obviously they aren’t going to make the Chase again this year, but they have some positive momentum going and hopefully they can capitalize on it the rest of this year and as they look to their 2012 program.
So now the attention turns to Atlanta and the Labor Day weekend race there. With only two races left — Atlanta and Richmond — before the Chase starts, the pressure is building even greater on these drivers teetering on the fence of either making or falling out of the Chase field.
Tony Stewart has to be worried the most. He’s hanging onto the 10th spot in the points. He’s only 21 points ahead of Brad Keselowski. Tony still doesn’t have a win this year. If he doesn’t get one in the next two races and Brad is able to make up the difference and knock Tony out of the 10th spot, Tony won’t make the Chase.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is in ninth, but I believe there is just too much of a spread in the points for him to get knocked out. Obviously with Dale also not having a win, it could come into play if things go really bad for them these next two events.
Even though he does have a win this season, another really nervous driver has to be the cat in 13th spot — Denny Hamlin. While neither Paul Menard, David Ragan or Marcos Ambrose can catch and pass him in the points with only two races to go, the stress factor for Denny are their wins. All those guys also have a win this season. If one of the three were to win the next two races, Denny will also be on the outside looking in for the 2011 championship. The other obstacle David and Marcos face is, even with the one win, they are currently outside the Top 20. They can only be considered for a Wild Card spot if they get back into the Top 20 in points.
If that wasn’t enough to keep Denny up at night, he also has to worry about Clint Bowyer. Clint is currently in the 12th spot in the points ahead of Denny. If Clint were to win one of the next two races and Brad doesn’t make the Top 10 in points, then Clint gets the last wild-card spot if he is ahead of Denny in points at the checkered flag at Richmond in two weeks.
So there is a lot to keep our eyes on, especially when we get to Richmond. One big thing to watch for this weekend is the big bucks on the line for a few drivers. Three million dollars are on the line for Marcos Ambrose, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Paul Menard. If one of those four drivers wins the Atlanta Cup race, they will have won the Sprint Summer Showdown promotion. The winning driver will receive a cool $1 million, the driver’s charity of choice will also win $1 million plus some lucky fan could become a millionaire instantly. How cool is that?
I am excited about this year’s Chase and that obviously isn’t something I could say in the past. Changing the point system and especially adding the two wild-card spots this year have gone a long way in changing the dynamic in our sport. The focus now is on wins, like I’ve always said it should be. These guys are driving different and you now very seldom hear the talk of “well, we had a good points day.”
There will be everything on the line for some teams in two weeks. For those handful of guys that are on the Chase bubble, well, solidifying a spot after Richmond for the Chase will obviously feel like winning a championship to them.
Many times you’ve heard me say that I felt Richmond, the last race of the regular season, was at times more exciting than the actual Chase. While I have no doubt that Richmond will be spectacular and surprising, I also have no doubt that we might witness the best Chase since the format was created.
There is still a possibility with two races left that for the first time, all the Chase contenders will have at least one win under their belt. That would be great. The bigger and better issue though is I see the intensity and excitement of the Chase reaching a new level this year. I loved what we have seen up to this point in the season with all the different first-time winners and amazing finishes, so there is no reason to believe that won’t continue when the Chase starts for those final 10 races of 2011.
