Injured Keselowski Toughs Out Second Win Of 2011

(Brad Keselowski, the winner of the final NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway, took the checkered flag in Sunday's Sprint Cup Series event at Pocono. The reigning NNS champ earned the win despite having broken his ankle at a test earlier in the week. Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

Brad Keselowski’s challenge to the rest of the Sprint Cup field: “I can beat you with a broken leg.”

And he did.

Staying out on the track on old tires under a caution with 21 laps left in Sunday’s rain-interrupted Good Sam RV 500 at Pocono Raceway, Keselowski pulled away from Kyle Busch after a restart on Lap 185 of 200 to secure his second victory of the season—despite driving with a broken left ankle.

Keselowski, who was injured in a hard crash during testing Wednesday at Road Atlanta, kept Busch at bay over the final 10 laps. With Sunday’s victory—the third of his career—Keselowski’s fortunes took a dramatic turn with respect to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Having cracked the top 20, Keselowski is in position to claim the first wild-card spot, being the only driver in positions 11-20 with more than one victory. Keselowski leaves Pocono 18th in the standings, having gained three positions Sunday.

Kyle Busch came home second, followed by Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Paul Menard completed the top 10.

Keselowski downplayed his gutsy effort.

“I'm no hero,” Keselowski said. “The heroes are the guys that died in Afghanistan this weekend. I want to spend time thinking about them. They’re my inspiration for this weekend, the things that those guys do.

“I’m glad that we could win today, but those are the heroes. I just drive racecars for a living.”

Kurt Busch, Keselowski’s teammate at Penske Racing, gave the driver of the No. 2 Dodge a little more credit than that.

“It’s amazing what the body can do,” Busch said. “For him to go through that wreck this week and get back on his horse right away and find success, that’s only going to make Brad Keselowski a better racer.”

Just past the halfway point of the race, rain began to fall, lightly at first and then in torrents. After the cars crossed the stripe on pit road to complete Lap 124, NASCAR stopped the race with polesitter Joey Logano in the lead, hoping the deluge would continue.

That didn’t happen. The rain abated, and the race resumed after a stoppage of 1 hour, 40 minutes, 46 seconds, dashing Logano’s hopes of claiming a second career victory the same way he got his first one (New Hampshire in June 2009)—with an assist from the elements.

Keselowski and Kurt Busch got to the front of the field with a contrarian strategy that brought them to the pits for fuel and tires right before the stoppage. When the cars ahead of them came to the pits under caution after the resumption, Keselowski and Busch were elevated to positions 1 and 2, respectively, for the restart on Lap 132. That turned the race around.

“Everybody’s getting more aggressive with their calls,” said Paul Wolfe, Keselowski’s crew chief. “My engineers seemed pretty confident that we were going to go back green. We know it’s going to take calls like that to get us in the Chase. I knew it was going to take a call like today to get another win to get us closer to that opportunity.”

“Just tell ’em, Paul, you’ve got balls this big,” Keselowski chimed in.

Before the lengthy red-flag period, Joe Gibbs Racing cars had dominated the race. Logano had set the pace for 39 laps. Denny Hamlin, a wizard at Pocono from the day he set eyes on the track as a rookie in 2006, had led a race-high 65 laps to that point, and Kyle Busch chipped in with six laps led for a team total of 110 of the first 124.

Immediately before the rain delay, Logano had withstood the persistent efforts of Johnson to pass him for the lead. But for the vagaries of nature, that could have been a battle for the win, and both drivers raced as if it were.

“We knew the rain was coming, and I was trying to hold off the 48 (Johnson),” Logano said. “I saw him coming—and coming pretty hard. My spotter said it was raining pretty hard in (Turn) 3, so I tried to hold him off through the Tunnel (Turn) there.

“It was pretty exciting there coming to the end, when my crew chief, Zippy (Greg Zipadelli), told me about five laps (before) the caution came out that the 48 was catching me, and the rain was coming. I just kept on digging, and finally it just started downpouring in (Turn 3).”

Neither Logano nor Hamlin was a factor at the end. Logano had to make an unscheduled pit stop on Lap 189 and finished 26th. Hamlin’s No. 11 crew had trouble with lug nuts on his right rear tire on his last pit stop, and Hamlin was buried in the pack on the restart and finished 15th.--Reid Spencer

TRANSCRIPT: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Talks to the Media at Pocono

(Dale Earnhardt Jr. Photo by Brandon W. Mudd)

DO YOU THINK YOU WILL RUN WELL HERE THIS WEEKEND? “I hope so. We’ll see. We’ve got a tricky little race track here and some new shifting rules. So we’ll be learning all day long hoping we’ll be able to get up to speed and be competitive.”

HOW ABOUT THIS TRACK AND HOW YOU’VE RUN HERE IN THE PAST, DO YOU THINK THIS IS A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN END THE STREAK? “I don’t know. We’ve not been real successful here in the last several years. We’ve had a really good start when we first started coming here. We’ve had a lot of good runs but the last couple of years haven’t been that awesome. We’re taking it one week at a time and see how it goes.”

WHERE IS THE CONFIDENCE LEVEL RIGHT NOW? “It’s good. I’m still good. Just trying to be productive, show up on time, be ready to work, try to work hard. See how that works out for me. It’s been going so good so far. Wanna keep trying to get better too.”

HAVE YOU BEEN TRYING ANYTHING DIFFERENT THAT HAS LED TO THESE GOOD RESULTS? “Basically we changed everything. I’m in a new shop, new team, new crew chief. Everything has been changed. I don’t know what else different I can do. That’s a lot. We’ve made a lot of changes.”

AFTER THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS DO YOU TAKE THAT AS FRUSTRATION KIND OF FUELED THE FIRE FOR POCONO? “It’s great, it’s not frustrating. I’m running good.”

SO CLOSE TO FIRST LACE THOUGH? “Yeah, that’s great. That’s where you want to be. Close. If not winning, that’s better than running damn 25th and 30th every week I’ll tell you that.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT SHIFTING HERE AND IF YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE SHIFTING? “I don’t know. I’m going to try to find out. I haven’t shift here in a while. I think it’s unnecessary but they think the brakes are going to be better but it ain’t going to be no better.”

DO YOU THINK ANYBODY WILL HAVE A REMEMBERING ISSUE WITH IT? “Shifting is no big deal. Just hopefully you’ve got the gears all right and everything feels pretty comfortable. It should be fine.”

AS FAR AS THE RACING, WHAT DO YOU THINK WE ARE GOING TO SEE AS AN IMPACT OF THE SHIFTING? “It will be the same as it was last year. Take last year’s race and replay it and just imagine all the drivers are shifting.”

THERE IS RAIN IN THE FORECAST, HOW MUCH DOES THAT IMPACT HOW YOU APPROACH PRACTICE? “What are the rules if it rains out tomorrow?”

FASTEST IN FINAL PRACTICE I THINK. “If none of us know, I don’t know if we can answer that question. Steve will do all that, I just get in there and he’ll say man we’ve got to put a lap down lets go and I’ll go try to do it. If we do we do, if we don’t, we don’t. Mainly today we’re just going to focus on how the car gets through the corners, whether we’re comfortable, how we’re shifting. We’ve got a little bit of time today and just try to really get those things down and get that stuff comfortable so we can run a whole race on Sunday.”

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT MICHIGAN? “I don’t know. I feel like we’ve run pretty good there the last several times we’ve raced there. I really like the race track. It’s a real fun place to race. You’ve got to have a lot of motor and you can’t use a lot of gasoline. When we put a lot of gas in these cars to go fast you end up running short on the fuel mileage. A lot of times that is a fuel-mileage race. You do need a lot of motor though and we’re pretty good in that department.”

SPEAKING OF MOTOR, IF YOU COULD PICK BETWEEN POWER AND AERODYNAMICS WHICH ONE WOULD YOU PICK? “Aerodynamics probably. Matt Kenseth won a championship without any motor. Jack Roush will tell you they ain’t got any motor, they’ve got a pretty good one these days but back then they haven’t too much. Sometimes when you actually get down on power you go through the corner faster. Aerodynamics is always important.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE QUALIFYING CHANGES THIS WEEKEND? “I really don’t know what the changes are. I haven’t really paid much attention to it. I think first practice determines how we will qualify. I thought if it rained out we would start by points but I guess it could be the last practice speed. I don’t know. It will take me a couple of weeks to get this all sorted out. It sounds kind of confusing.”

YOU SEEMED REALLY HAPPY AFTER LAST WEEKS RACE. “Yeah, I feel like it’s a good relationship and going pretty good. Just trying to protect it and keep it going that way. Hopefully everybody on the team is enjoying what we’re doing. We’re not satisfied, we want to win races and I know that those guys are itching to win and get in victory lane and if we work hard we’ll get rewarded with that. I hope everybody on the team is enjoying what’s going on this year. I certainly am. I’m certainly having a good time.”

HOW MUCH HAS BORIS SAID HELPED ELEVATE ROAD RACING IN THIS ENTIRE SERIES WITH THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE HE HAS WORKED WITH? “Well he’s definitely very helpful. He’s helped me with setup ideas, knowledge about road course set up, how to set a car up for road courses and obviously helped me with driving, helped a lot of drivers with driving. Him and Ron Fellows both, any time any of those guys come in and are fast they elevate the standard of competition and elevate the level of speed and what you need to change to be good always gets tougher. They definitely made us all faster whether it be by tutoring us or by raising the stakes by showing up.”

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR YOUR NATIONWIDE CARS WITH DANICA AND SOMEONE ELSE NEXT YEAR? “We haven’t really talked about it. We’re waiting on Danica to make her decision and we can start to plan what we want to do. It would be a lot of fun to try to go full time. We definitely would like to be part of that opportunity. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”

WHAT IMPACT DOES FUEL STRATEGY HAVE ON THIS PARTICULAR TRACK? SOMETIMES CIRCUMSTANCES LIKE CAUTIONS PLAY A ROLE AS WELL? “Yeah, that’s what really causes it from the get go. If the caution comes out, if you’re car is going to go sixty laps on fuel and the caution comes out with 65 laps to go then you’re in a little bit of a pickle. That’s just the way it happens sometimes.”

WITH ALL THE CHANGES COMING INTO THIS RACE, THE SHIFTING AND QUALIFYING, EVERY WEEK IT’S A WIDE OPEN RACE FOR EVERYBODY, DOES THAT MAKE IT ANY DIFFERENT COMING INTO THE WEEKEND? “Not really. I think it will be pretty similar to how it was last year. Racing here has always kind of been the same.”

ARE YOU CONFIDENT AT THIS RACE TRACK? “I like this place. It’s real tough to get around. It’s a pretty tough race track with all three corners being really different. The car wants to drive different through all three corners. Hopefully you kind of got a good balance across the board. But I feel good. Feel like we just are going to try to come here and do a good job, put together a good weekend just like we’ve been doing every week.”

DO YOU THINK THERE SHOULD BE A RULE IN PLACE FOR A DRIVER, IF YOU DO DAMAGE TO ANOTHER CAR AFTER THE CHECKERED FLAG YOU SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR THE DAMAGES? “I don’t know if that would have made a difference. I don’t know. The way it was handled and I was reading some of Brian’s comments about Darlington and he was saying and I may be wrong but as far as I remember he was saying where he had a problem was the extracurricular stuff that went on outside of the flag. Everything in between the green flag and the checkered flag was fine but what happened after the checkered flag they felt was a problem. And then in Kansas it wasn’t a problem. So that was the only thing that stuck out to me, when is it okay to hit a guy after the race and when is it not okay. What Kyle did in Kansas we do all the time. I didn’t really think that was too big of a deal. Obviously it upset Richard but we run into each other all the time after a race but really a lot of it never gets caught on television or seen by anybody. Sometimes it’s because you’re happy for somebody and sometimes it’s because you’re mad at somebody. We end up sorting those things out ourselves someway and somehow. I guess there is a certain level of contact that doesn’t need to happen after the race. I can totally understand. I’m not calling Brian out or anything I’m just saying I wish I knew everything and I don’t.”

KYLE SAID HE DIDN’T REALIZE HE CAUSED THAT MUCH DAMAGE, YOU SAID YOU GUYS DO IT ALL THE TIME, AT WHAT LEVEL DO YOU DO IT ALL THE TIME? “If you’re mad at somebody you’re not thinking about nothing but what you’re mad about. You’re not worried about nothing but what pissed you off. Sometimes you make mistakes, sometimes you handle it just right and sometimes you don’t do nothing. It just depends, it’s all circumstantial. I don’t have much concern in it and I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. It was a big deal. What Richard did obviously drew tons of attention but what Kyle did wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. When you just see it on TV you go oh man that happens all the time. I’ve seen that a million times before.”

IF SOMEONE HAD DONE LIKE $10,000 DOLLARS DAMAGE TO YOUR NATIONWIDE CAR? “I’d get mad. Heck yeah. When Denny and Brad were being idiots at Charlotte that one race and banging into each other’s fenders and stuff it really upset me. I was in another car and I went up there and ran into Denny.”

AFTER THE RACE OR DURING? “During. We were all like hey don’t hit that car. It was just really stupid all of us and then there was that big fight afterwards between the two teams. Not my team but the other two teams. It was just silly. That happens all the time and yeah you get mad. That damn Beuscher kid wrecked Danica in California for no freaking reason at all so he’s on the list. He’s got his coming one day.”

TRANSCRIPT: Kyle Busch Talks to Media at Pocono

(Kyle Busch, seen here at Eldora Speedway earlier this week drawing his qualifying number for the Prelude to the Dream, addressed the media Friday. Photo by Brandon W. Mudd)

What is your strategy coming into Pocono?

"This week always a little bit challenging for us.  Not the typical Bristol or Richmond or Charlotte or something where we know how to run there or expect to run there.  This kind of place throws us a little bit for a loop every time we get here --whether we run up front or whether we struggle a little bit.  Last spring was really good for us -- we sat on the pole and led alot of laps and ran real well.  Then towards the end we finished second to Denny (Hamlin) I believe.  Then the fall race, just kind of meandered back about 12th or 15th all day.  Didn't quite get everything we wanted.  We'll see if we can't turn the tables again this time and try to run up front and get a good finish this weekend for all our M&M's guys."

Do you look forward to getting in the race car during difficult situations?

"It's different for every driver, but it my particular case I feel like once you get out onto the race track or once you get in the car and put your helmet on and then out on the race track -- that's where your priorities lie and that's where your focus is. To me, it doesn't seem that challenging."

Do you feel you have a respect issue in the garage and do you need respect in the garage to be successful?

"Can't answer the first part for you -- you would have to ask everybody else.  As far as needing respect in the garage area -- certainly.  It makes your day a little bit easier.  Makes your job a little bit easier.  I've been able to have good conversations and talk to people outside the race car or at driver intros or stuff  like that.  Whether it's the case that they're not being true to my face -- I don't know, I can't read that.  I'm not in people's minds.  If you're mad at me, you'll have to tell me."

What are your thoughts on the new qualifying procedure at Pocono?

"To me, the whole schedule is a little weird.  You come in today and you get the first practice and the first practice is going to base your time for qualifying.  Then you go into the second practice, which is later in the day -- about when the race is going to end.  Then there's going to be a lot of grip probably when the track starts cooling off just a little bit around the 4:30 or 5:00 time frame.  We'll see how it pans out.  You come in on Saturday and you run one lap and then you have nothing else to do and then you wait until the race on Sunday.  That to me is a little weird.  I like the old schedule a lot better – just personal preference, if I had an opinion I would say that you come in and you run some race laps to get yourself acclimated to the track, you switch over, you go to qualifying trim, you make some laps, you qualifying that afternoon or evening or whatever it may be.  Then the next day you have two practice sessions solely devoted to your race car and what you might need to work on for Sunday.  To me, that's a more productive schedule."

Do you feel like you are wearing the black hat rather than the white hat lately?

"I'm not sure that there's really any hats to be worn here.  The black hat deal -- the villain type thing, I'm not sure that I really did a whole lot to bring that back upon myself.  I feel like I've acted in the utmost respect to every case that's come up my way and has been thrown in front of me.  I've tried to do it with dignity and class and I feel like that comes from people wearing white hats -- not black."

Do you understand why Richard Childress was mad last week?

"Me giving a congratulatory bump to Joey Coulter is what tipped him (Richard Childress) over the edge there.  I don't recall anytime -- face-to-face conversation where Richard did tell me that, 'If you touch another one of my cars I'm going to come find you.'  I don't know if it was ever said in the media, but it was never relayed to me."

Would it be good if drivers paid for damage they cause to other cars?

"If he came to me and was so upset about it, I would have offered him money to fix it.  I'm an owner in this sport -- I know there's going to be torn up equipment here and there sometimes, whatever.  I will say that if I didn't roll out of the throttle, we both would have crashed off of turn four.  The kid did what he was supposed to do on the last lap there.  We raced each other for 18 laps and I was having fun with him trying to keep him back and I thought I had it done and then he got on my inside down the backstretch there and pulled a slide job through three and four and kind of squeezed me up there.  I had two options -- lift and let him beat me, which is fine, no problem.  We're racing for fifth in the Truck Series -- wasn't for a win. Or crash the both of us.  It wasn't necessary for any of that."

Have you received any secret fines in the last seven days?

"No."

How should NASCAR handle penalties if someone is threatening a lawsuit?

"I don't know.  That's not to my discretion to be honest with you.  It's further to NASCAR to depose.  That's a great question for the, but for myself, I need an instance of what you're explaining.  Besides all the information you've just given me and the question you've asked, I can't really comment further."

Did you know how much damage there was on Joey Coulter's truck at Kansas?

"No, I didn't feel like I hit him all that hard.  I just thought I rubbed him a little bit.  Typically when you rub a guy, you don't see much damage from it.  The trucks are so different too.  I forgot about how the left-front fender on a truck – the nose is so much wider than the tire is so it kind of sticks out a little further so maybe there was more damage than I thought I would have caused.  That's entirely my fault -- I'm the one that instigated it there or initiated it.  As far as him having to fly out body hangers and all that stuff -- if it's something they didn't feel that they could hammer and dolly out, sorry it came to that."

Did the media interpret malicious intent toward Joey Coulter?

"There can be an easy way to interpret things sometimes and it seems like maybe I might be on the wrong end of interpretation a lot of those times.  There was no malicious intent to be involved in hurting or damaging a RCR (Richard Childress Racing) vehicle."

Was anything said to you by Richard Childress prior to last week's incident?

"No.  We were in that NASCAR hauler from Darlington after the race and he (Richard Childress) never said a word in there."

How are M&M's handling the recent situations?

"M&M's is handling things the best that they can handle it and going through things day by day.  There's a lot of support there.  We just had a NASCAR day at Hackettstown, New Jersey yesterday and people were awesome.  They had a lot of great questions about racing, about the sponsorship, about the partnership that we have and how things have really been working well for them over the past few seasons and how we can continue to grow the brand.  They're doing everything they can in their power to make sure that we continue to carry on the presence of M&M's in NASCAR and with Kyle Busch."

How much have you talked with your brother in recent weeks?

"I've talked to my brother (Kurt Busch) a little bit.  He's had some good things to say and some good advice to give as well. You mentioned that he had been through something like this before -- little bit different case.  We discussed some things. As far as there being support on my end -- sure, there's been a lot of support.  I've got a lot of friends that I talk to in the garage area.  Whether they're crew chiefs or team members from other teams -- even team members from the RCR (Richard Childress Racing) camp that are my friends.  I've had an outreach of support as well as after the incident in Darlington, it's not something new for race fans, for as passionate and devoted as they are to this sport or to a particular driver that the outcry of a penalty -- they want to pitch in and help.  I didn't boast about it, but I had the same amount of fans that wanted to help pay my fine from Darlington in which we just put the money toward the Kyle Busch Foundation.  It's cool to have that support when times get tough and it is cool that you can have something better come out of a situation like that."

How many cars can win each week and how many are championship contenders?

"Good question.  It is early.  To be honest with you, it changes every single lap or every single fuel stop or pit stop.  For instance, last weekend I thought Carl (Edwards) was going to win the race.  He drove up through green flag conditions, took the lead and didn't take it off pit road and then two runs later I'm passing Carl and I'm running sixth and he's eighth or ninth or something like that and I'm like, 'I just thought this guy was going to win the race.'  Now you've got somebody else out there and Jeff Gordon started coming.  Then at the end of the race there was the fuel strategy playing out and all of the sudden Brad Keselowski is leading.  It changes every lap.  Somebody asked me last week or the week before -- do you feel like you're a safe bet going into the Chase riding on two wins?  Brad Keselowski just won a race -- if he wins one more, he's got two wins and he's going to be, if I fall out, I'm going to be a guy and he's going to be a guy and Jeff Gordon with one win is going to be out.   Things can change awfully quick."

Is tire management or fuel management more difficult?

"If you had to just go into fuel management mode -- that's the hardest thing for me to do -- I can't understand how to do that.  I've done it in the past and I feel like I'm doing a really good job at it.  Then I end up being a half-a-lap short or maybe a lap short or something like that.  Carl (Edwards), for instance, I feel like he's probably one of the best – Brad (Keselowski) might be pretty good at it too, obviously from last weekend.  Tony (Stewart) won here last year on a fuel mileage race or the year before.  Those guys do a great job at being able to maximize the amount of fuel in their cell and I've tried doing the same techniques they have -- I just haven't been as successful as they are.  You have a crew chief tell you, 'Hey man, we're eight laps short to the end of the race, we are going to have to save some.'  And they make it.  It's like, where do you find all that?  I remember Carl at Homestead, I think it was 2008 and he was like eight laps short and were are like, 'There is no way these guys are going to make it.'  They ended up making it.  To me, tire management is a lot easier.  Richmond, for instance there, the last run of the race, we went 100 laps there at the end.  You were in a little bit of a tire saving mode and a little bit of a fuel saving mode so with both of those together, it actually helped me.  I feel like that was probably the best fuel savings that I have been able to accomplish."

TRANSCRIPT: Brad Keselowski Post-Win Press Conference

(Brad Keselowski earned his second-career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win Sunday at a hot Kansas Speedway. Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

 BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) Finished 1st

“It was hot out there.  We’ve been so close.  We’ve been plugging away.  We had a car that I thought was capable of winning.   I had a car last week that sat on the pole and had a shot at it and just caught the wrong line on the restart.  The same thing at Dover and Darlington, we could just never catch that good break.  You can only put yourself in that position so many times before you’re going to catch the right break.  We caught a great break today because of all the hard work by the Miller Lite team that works on these Dodge Chargers.  We got great gas mileage and that doesn’t hurt either.”

HOW DID YOU SAVE FUEL TODAY?  “There are some secrets to it and I just maximized them all.  I had plenty (of fuel) left.  The 14 car pitted the same time that I did and came out first and I thought for sure that I was going to run second.   I was just hoping to hang on to second.  Nobody really told me that we were leading.  I don’t know when I took the lead.  The scoreboard is right in the middle of the race track and I looked over and saw my name on the top with two to go.  I started shaking.  I’m glad that they didn’t tell me.  It’s because of the hard work.  It’s because of the bad finishes and the struggles that we had to get here that I really appreciate this win.  I really appreciate what this means to my whole team and everybody that has helped me to get here.  And to Roger Penske who put me in this ride and stuck with me through a bad year last year.  We’re in good shape.  A few more wins like this and we can make the Chase.”

YOU STARTED 25TH; YOU DIDN’T BACK INTO A TOP-10 RUN TODAY.  “We were a top-10 car, maybe the bottom half of the top 10, but a top-10 car.  You look at our runs this year, we’ve been top-five, top-10 cars at a lot of races this year and caught bad breaks.  You can only put yourself in position for so long and not have something good happen to you eventually.  It did today.”

ROGER PENSKE (Owner – Penske Racing)

“I think we’ve made a lot of progress the last several weeks.  People haven’t really noticed it, but bad break there when the 4 car stalled at Charlotte with the 2 car there and the 22 has run well.   This is a real step-up for us.  These are the tracks that were tough for us, the one-and-a-half miles.  It looks like we have a handle on these now.  We’ll see what happens.”

KURT BUSCH (No. 22 AAA Dodge Charger) Finished Ninth

“I’m proud of the way that this team has run.  To have a car to lead laps today and be very competitive, I was all smiles.   I felt coming into the weekend that if we could pace ourselves, have good team communication, we would be competitive.  it was great.  There was always something in the back of my mind today that we weren’t going to win, but I’m glad that Brad Keselowski got this win for those Miller Lite guys, for Dodge.  We’re really happy to keep AAA up front all day today.  It’s just one of those days where you’re on the right side, sometimes you’re not.  For all my guys, we’ll take this one and the points.  I’m not discouraged at all.”

MEDIA CENTER POST RACE

Brad Keselowski, Crew Chief Paul Wolfe, Roger Penske

WITH THIS WIN, YOU HAVE QUALIFIED FOR THE 2012 NASCAR SPRINT ALL-STAR RACE. 

KESELOWSKI:  “I didn't think of that one.  That's four years in a row.  We'll take that."

TALK ABOUT YOUR WIN, NOT ONLY YOUR ABILITY TO CONSERVE GAS BUT YOUR ABILITY TO TAKE IT DOWN TO THE WIRE AND WIN. 

KESELOWSKI:  “It was a team victory today.  We had Kurt Busch, my teammate, who led the majority of the race from what I could see, and had good speed and the 2 car had great speed as well.  We just kind of caught a bad break on qualifying when we went out.  But it's a team effort.  Kurt had them covered on speed.  We had them covered on strategy.  And together one of us two was going to win.  And I'm proud in general that it was a Penske car that won.  It was so hot today, long, tiring.  It feels good to soak in a victory and a beer and some water afterwards and be sitting here in front of you with a trophy and some great guys in victory lane."

ROGER, TALK ABOUT HOW IT ALL PLAYED OUT FOR YOU TODAY.     

PENSKE:  “Well, it's great to see Dodge back in the winner’s circle, and certainly you know when Brad came on point with us last year, and we put Paul Wolfe as a combination crew chief and driver, and 13 races now they've got a victory.  Exactly, to me, it's what we worked on.  We didn't get the finishes we wanted.  We could always say we had bad luck last week.  We were in third place getting ready to go on that restart and Kasey Kahne ran out of gas, when we got in that wreck.  But I think it's a credit to Paul Wolfe and Brad.

“They're talking all the time.  They’re working, there's nobody more committed.  The good news is to hear Kurt say even though he really wanted this win, to say it was great for the team and that we finally think we have a combination that we can run on the mile-and-a-halfs, because we struggle on the mile-and-a-halfs."

PAUL, THIS IS YOUR FIRST SPRINT CUP WIN; TALK ABOUT HOW IT HAPPENED.

WOLFE:  “Obviously, being my first win, I’m really excited about all the effort that's been put in so far.  And to be able to get the Miller Lite Dodge to victory lane was pretty special today.  Brad and I talked, I think this week or the week before that, man, if we just keep putting ourselves in the top 10, it's not always the fastest car that seems to be winning these races.  So we've kept working on our program since the beginning of the year.

“It was kind of embarrassing of how we ran at California and Vegas earlier in the year.  So to see the progress that we've made and put ourselves in position to win these races now just says a lot about all the hard work and everything that's going on at Penske Racing.  One point in the race, I don't know, we were still running 15th and Kurt was out there leading the race.  It was pretty cool, because we knew what the leader had in his car, we knew what we had.  It's just been a good team effort here of late, just really trying to understand how to get these cars better.  Running similar geometries and front ends have definitely helped, I think, both of us to get our cars better.”

IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU FELT A LITTLE STUNNED YOURSELF IN THAT POSITION AT THE END.

KESELOWSKI:  “Well, I don't know.  I didn't see the coverage.  But I know that I didn't know I was leading until two laps to go.  Kind of stretched my neck out, barely caught the board to see I was leading, I was instantly mad at my guys for not telling me, but you get over that.  We'd been doing everything we could to save gas.  It didn't really affect me whether I knew I was leading or not.  It was probably really smart of them not to tell me that because I probably would have drove it really, really hard.  It all worked out at the end, and they talk about you when you're in victory lane, that's all that matters.”

EARLIER YOU SAID IT’S EASIER FOR GUYS TO RUN IN THE MIDDLE TO CONSERVE FUEL AND NOT UP THERE PUSHING FOR THE LEAD.  IS THAT IND OF HOW THINGS PLAYED OUT TODAY?

KESELOWSKI:  “Yes and no.  I was pushing really hard the run before and drove up to seventh- or eighth place I think it was.  And we were a legitimate, probably top-five car.  We needed to get the clean air to be a car to win the race.  I quite honestly felt like Kurt and I were pretty equal.  It was just a matter of being up front and having the right track position.  But you know we didn't qualify as well as we'd like to.  So we never really found that.  So like I said, Kurt had them covered on speed.  We had them covered on strategy.  And at the end, a Penske car was going to win and that's just what happened.”

AT WHAT POINT IN THE RACE DID YOU GUYS CONSCIOUSLY MAKE THE DECISION THAT YOU WERE GOING TO TRY TO STRETCH THE FUEL MILEAGE AND GO FOR IT, AND AFTER YOU DID, HOW CONCERNED WERE YOU THAT A CAUTION WOULD COME OUT AND THAT WOULD BE THROWN OUT THE WINDOW?

KESELOWSKI:   “Hell, I wasn't sure.  I didn't know what was going on.  I'd like to know.”

WOLFE:  Around lap two, we knew if we could make it to (lap) 210, from there we were close to being able to make it the rest of the way.  As guys started pitting, we kind of    I kind of looked at where our lap times were, and it seemed like we started picking up a bunch of speed there.  I don't know if we got some clean air or what.  But it was almost a no-brainer for me because we were only losing three to four tenths to the guys on new tires.  Normally, when guys start short pitting, it seems like you're losing over a second a lap and you just lose so much track position.  But it was like as everybody started peeling off and pitting, we just kept getting faster and faster.  We were still running mid, I guess 33s or whatever it was, and guys

were running low 33s.  And it was like, well, we're not losing much, so it got us in a position where there were so many cars a lap down, even if the caution came out, we were still sitting okay.  It was almost a no-brainer for me once I saw how much speed we had in the clean air.”

DRIVERS TALKED ABOUT WHAT THEY DID TO DEAL WITH THE HEAT.  HOW BAD WAS THE HEAT FOR YOU?  WHAT DID YOU DO TO DEAL WITH IT?  WHAT DID THE HEAT DO FOR YOU ON THE TRACK?

KESELOWSKI:   “Nobody loves it.  Some people tell you they love it just so they can look tough.  (Laughter).  But I don't know anybody that really loves it.  But there's a part that certainly plays in.  You know obviously how you condition yourself and so forth.  And I don't really want to go into any details on that.  But I've been coming to Kansas for a long time.  Used to be I ran the truck race here every June and July.  So I got used to that pretty quickly, back five, 10 years ago.  It wasn’t that long ago I was working with my mom and dad and coming to these race tracks, outside all day and the air conditioner never worked so I guess I built a little toughness to the hot Kansas weather.  And certainly being from the Midwest, you get toughened up by some people that don't own air conditioning.  But it all worked out.  And it's not easy.  I can tell you that.  You lose weight.  And when you lose weight you get drained down physically.  And it seems like that pulls you down mentally.  When you get tired physically, you make mental mistakes.  When you get tired mentally you make physical mistakes.  And they all play into each other, but that's why we're all driving these cars, because it's not easy.  And we're working hard to do the best we can at it.  And that's what it takes to find yourself in victory lane at the end of the day.  To get in victory lane, you have to run a no mistake race.  And that's what we did today.”

DOES THIS FEEL LIKE YOU’RE STARTING OVER FROM SCRATCH PAUL, HOW MUCH DO YOU SHARE WITH THE 22 TEAM?

KESELOWSKI:  "As far as starting over from scratch, I sat down the other day and was thinking about it.  I guess it was at the start of the year, and I think I've been in Cup for two and a half years.  I’ve had something like seven crew chiefs, from doing the partial deal with Hendrick, partial deal with Phoenix Racing, and I'm sure there was one or two others in there I can't remember.  It's been a lot of people.  And we're finally hitting on a good combination here with Paul and I.  And we're on the same wave length, and that's really what matters the most.”

WOLFE:   ‘As far as the information sharing between the teams, it's definitely obvious that we do share all the information.  I think you can see that in how well both cars ran today.  And it seems like here of late, we've made some gains, and I think it showed up in both cars.       And we'll continue to work together to make each of us better.  That’s kind of how it's supposed to work.  And I feel like the relationship between Steve and I and our communication's real well.  And between the drivers, I think this says a lot for Brad and the respect that he deserves, and I'm sure Kurt gives him now.  He’s proven that he's as good as anybody out there."

THIS MOVES YOU FROM 25TH TO 21ST IN THE POINT STANDINGS.  WHAT’S THE OUTLOOK OF GETTING IN THE CHASE?

KESELOWSKI:  “I have the boss telling me seven points.  It's certainly doable.  It makes you certainly look back at races like Daytona and Talladega here earlier in the year where we wrecked out and those are wild-card races.  We've hit the bad side of the wild-card.  Just one or two of those races back and we're easily in the top 20.  But that's not the way it is.  So we've caught some bad breaks over the last few weeks that have kept us out of it.  And certainly we caught a good one today.  So at the end, it will all average out.  If we deserve to be in it, we'll get in it.  If we don't, we won't.  But right now, we're on a good path to deserve to be in it.  That's really what matters the most to me.

“I'm a big fan of the rule NASCAR implemented, putting winners in the last two spots.  I think that serves the sport very well.  And hopefully, we'll be able to capitalize on it.  But there are no guarantees of that.  I feel pretty confident that it's going to take two wins to guarantee your way into it.  So obviously, we've got to do this again, and that ain't easy.  I like the system.  And I feel good about our chances.  We just gotta’ keep moving forward and that's what it's all about.”

ON THAT LAST RUN, HOW MUCH FUEL DID YOU ACTUALLY SAVE?  WHAT WAS THE NORMAL EXPECTATION FOR A FUEL RUN?

WOLFE:  “We were only about three quarters of a lap short.  So we didn't need to save much.  But the way it played out, there was nobody really pressuring us.  So we went into a really conservative mode.  And I can't really answer how much Brad thinks he saved.  Only he knows that.”

KESELOWSKI:  “I didn't save any.”

WOLFE:  “We knew it wasn't    it really wasn't close.  I didn't feel it was a very big gamble.  We had ourselves in a pretty good position.”

YOU SAID EARLIER THAT YOU HAVE NOTICED LATELY THAT THE FASTEST CAR HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN WINNING.  DO YOU SEE THAT, IS IT JUST A COINCIDENCE, OR DO YOU SEE IT TAKING PLACE MORE OFTEN?

 WOLFE:  “It might be a little of both, guys taking gambles or whatnot.  But like Brad said, everything has to be perfect to win one of these races.  So when I say the fastest car doesn't always win, I mean you can have the fastest car, but if you don't have good pit strategy or you don't keep yourself out of trouble or put yourself in situations, it really doesn't matter.  What I've seen is if you can put yourself in the top 10, you give yourself a chance, at least.  And we feel like that's what we did today.  And I think our car is maybe a little better than what it showed.  We did put ourselves in the top 10, but I think if we could have been up, you know, the farther we got up (in the field) the faster we got.  It's just so hard with these cars, you know, when you're back there in traffic, to see what speed they really have.  Everybody just fights the same thing.”

WE HAVE WELL OVER A THOUSAND ETHANOL PRODUCERS AND CORN GROWERS HERE.  WHAT IS YOUR PERSPECTIVE ABOUT USING 15 PERCENT ETHANOL BLEND?

KESELOWSKI:  “I think you have to applaud NASCAR and the efforts they have on the Green initiative.  I know there's some fancy word for it.  The NASCAR Green initiative, isn't it called something?  That program.  But I thought it had some really cool name.  You guys need to work on a really cool slogan.  But I think you've got to applaud them for pulling that rope and working really hard on that.  And it's just an added benefit and something that comes from America.  I guess I didn't even know that.  I guess I should have known that.  But that's really cool.”

WOLFE:  “It really hasn't changed as far as the performance side.  The fuel mileage has changed a little bit.  But it's the same for everybody.  So it seemed to work out, pretty good fuel for us today.  So we're just excited that we can be part of it.”

PENSKE:   “I think if we look at oil and availability of fuels as we go forward, the opportunity to combine petroleum products with this product, ethanol, I think is going in the right direction.  And NASCAR has been committed many years to look at these opportunities.  And we spent a lot of time on our dynamometers getting the engine back to power.  But at this point, the reliability is there, the fuel mileage is there, and you can see the performance.  So I think it's a win win for everyone.”

BRAD AND ROGER, CAN YOU QUANTIFY THE IMPROVEMENT IN THIS TEAM FROM 2010 TO 2011?

PENSKE:   “Well, you know, it's interesting.  You grade your team probably every week.  And I think that you've got to be committed to stay on track.  And I think one of the things that we've done with Brad and Paul, and obviously with Kurt and Steve, we said, look, we're going to stay on track here.  It's so easy to get going in a different direction.  You see something that another team is doing and you go back and forth.  And I think we've pretty much stayed together.  I think the integrity and the transparency that Paul talked about, you know, with the 22 car has really paid off.  And the cars are better.  The drivers.  Obviously the more that Brad runs in this series, he's going to get better.  You can see it.  His restarts, the way he's coming in the pits here.  I watched it today.  The pit crews, this pit crew today, when you look at it, we started 25th.  Just every stop, we moved up.  So I heard him say on the radio one time it's a lot easier to pass in the pits than it is on the racetrack and you could see that.

     

“So I think it's working in a number of areas.  The engines    we've had good power.  We need more.  And we need better handling.  But these guys are testing every single week.  That's one of the things that I am always concerned about with NASCAR is that we can't test at the tracks that we race on so we spend all this money to go to other tracks, and we would have a much better chance, better show, if we could test at the track.  So that's one of the things, if you're a team trying to get to the front, it's so difficult.  You got to use simulation, and that doesn't really give you all the factors that you have on a day where the temperature's going up, you've got clouds coming over, correct, and overall it's just a lot of hard work.  We've got 350 people that are committed to these two guys and these two teams, and Paul has brought a commitment that we’ve never had in detail.  And he just won't let up.  And he got a payoff today for doing that.”

KESELOWSKI:  “That was a good speech, by the way.  It was really good.  Yeah, we're getting somewhere.  It's going to take time.  I think the biggest thing that everybody seems to overlook in this deal is you look at the average driver age, and some of you guys have heard me speak about this, some of you haven't.  We saw about five to 10 years ago a complete reset in the driver pool.  I think you should really look at that.  I think you turn on a race from 10 years ago, and look at who was on the track, who was driving and you're only going to find less than 15 of those drivers on there now.  And those are drivers that were young at that time, they were the Jeff Gordons, whoever you called young at that time.  I think what we're seeing is a very loaded field of youth, talent, experience.  And to come in as a driver, like I have myself over the last year or two, is an uphill climb.  It's a real uphill climb. 

"With the new car coming in, the lack of testing, the fact that there's so many good drivers out there right now, it’s a huge uphill climb to catch them, let alone beat them.  What I'm trying to say is the measuring stick of success for a new driver like myself or a Joey Logano or Trevor Bayne is different than what it's ever been.  It’s going to take    I told someone the other day that the true determining factor of our success from a timeline perspective, for me at Penske Racing, really isn't, in my eyes, even this year.  I'm sure the sponsors want it to be right now.  But the measuring stick for success for drivers before was one to two years.  The measuring of success for new drivers now, I think it's more like three to five years because of that.  It's going to take you longer to figure out these racetracks, to figure out these cars.

“So I'm excited to see where we're going to be over the next year or two.  I've seen a lot of progress in our team.  And I'm really, really encouraged.  But we have more room to continue to progress.  I have a lot of room to continue to progress.  And I think that we can continue to do that.  On an added note,, I think people are going to look back 10, 15, 20 years from now and  look at Jimmie Johnson and Chad and say they were maybe the best team ever and it took them five years to win their first championship.  So I think you gotta put all those things in perspective and realize how far we've come in just two years here at Penske Racing.  Paul and I, how far we still have to go, but we've come a long ways.  We have a ways to go.  I'm proud of where we're at and we're going to keep working and moving forward.”

AFTER KURT’S COMMENTS AT RICHMOND, HAS THERE BEEN ENOUGH TIME TO HAVE THOSE CHANGES MAKE AN IMPACT AT THIS POINT?

PENSKE:  “Well, I don't think that anyone making comments publicly or internally are going to turn the team around in two or three weeks.  I think Paul would probably be the best to answer that.  I mean, he's seen the meetings.  He's listened to what we're trying to do.  He's been a great contributor to the things that we're trying to make better.  Remember, when you've got two drivers and probably 30 cars, you can't just do things overnight, because we don't run the same car like we do on the IndyCar side.  I think it's progress.  It's the crew chief and the driver working together.  I think it's the transparency between the two teams.  We've added more engineering capability this year.  I think we're starting to see it now that we didn't have last year.  But this is 13 races.  Remember, we've got another, what, 13 to go before we get into the Chase.  So if we're sitting six or seven points out and we're starting to see some momentum here, I think that he's got a great chance to get in.  And Kurt's sitting obviously in sixth position.”

WOLFE:  “And, honestly, I don't feel like staying out today was a huge gamble.  But I think at this point, we just want to continue to put fast race cars out there.  And I think if you put yourself in victory lane, that will take care of the points.  One works with the other.  Like Brad said, it's probably going to take another win to get that spot.  So I think we just keep approaching it like we have and that's trying to make our race cars faster and when you do that the results come.”

KURT IS THE ONLY DRIVER THAT HAS BEEN IN THE TOP 10 IN POINTS EVERY WEEK.  CONSIDERING THAT, HOW DOES THAT SPEAK TO THE PROBLEMS AND PROGRESS YOUR TEAMS HAVE MADE?

PENSKE:  “I think when you look at the performance of the 22 team, you look at the big tracks, we were strong.  We got in accidents there.  The consistency, I think, the reliability.  Kurt's a fantastic driver.  I don't think that people realize how good he really is and sometimes it's going to be the best horse.  And sometimes he doesn't realize the horse he's on he's got to tame it to get it to go where he needs it to go.  It's like today at the beginning of the race, he was concerned about his car and I think the splitter was hitting the ground.  All of a sudden the tire pressure comes up and he took off like a shot past the leaders and went on and led most of the lap.  I think it's a learning curve.  And I think his confidence now with Brad being able to show the speed and Paul working with Steve has made a huge difference.”