Keselowski: 'With this format, we're by no means out'
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MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- After the first round of another three-race segment in the new-look Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs, Brad Keselowski finds himself in a familiar spot -- looking up at his competition from the lower rungs of the standings.
If there's any comfort to be had from the mechanically plagued 31st-place finish Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, it's that he's emerged from such a deficit before. With the points deck stacked against him -- 31 behind new standings leader Jeff Gordon -- Keselowski may need to rekindle last weekend's magic at Talladega, where a clutch victory helped him avoid elimination.
"We were gonna probably have ourselves a fifth or sixth-place day, which is certainly something we could be proud of and move forward with, but this kind of puts us in a position now where we need to win," Keselowski said after emerging from his Team Penske No. 2 Ford in the Sprint Cup garage. "This Chase lends itself to those moments and we're a team that's capable of them, so we'll try to be as positive as we can and move forward with two more opportunities to do just that."
Keselowski started a promising sixth but fell back early, losing 11 spots in the opening 30 laps. The wrong-way slide was compounded by a pit road speeding penalty during the fourth of 15 caution periods, and wasn't helped by his slowed momentum in trying to scrape past Brian Vickers' retaliatory crash of Kasey Kahne on Lap 221.
Though he restarted 23rd at the tail end of the lead lap after the speeding penalty, Keselowski inched his way back up into the back half of the top 10 in the race's second half before the day took a drastically downward turn.
Keselowski slowed dramatically at the exit of the fourth turn in the 438th of 500 laps, stacking up four more cars behind him in the race's biggest crash and prompting the first of two red flags in the final 100 laps. Keselowski stopped in his pit stall, but needed more extensive repairs behind the wall, losing 28 laps to the front-runners in the process.
"Yeah, my car barely had a scratch on it and was in really good shape to probably run fifth or sixth, which would have been a very decent day for us," Keselowski said. "We didn't quite have the speed we needed to win today and then something broke, which was unfortunate, not just for us but for the other guys that got tore up in it. It's just one of those deals, there was nothing you could really do different. I'm not really sure what happened. Something in the back of the car broke and I don't even know what yet, so it's just one of those deals."
The next two races on the horizon come at Texas Motor Speedway next Sunday and then Phoenix International Raceway in two weeks. A win in either race would place him among the final four drivers eligible for the title in the Sprint Cup Championship race Nov. 16 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Keselowski led multiple laps in his previous visits to each track, finishing third at Phoenix in March and taking 15th at Texas in April. Though victories have come in bunches this year, with a series-leading six winner stickers above his driver's door, Keselowski said the task ahead isn't easy.
"Yeah, it's still tough to do," Keselowski said. "It's not like we're just gonna go and guarantee a win at Texas and Phoenix, but it's also not impossible, and we've got the team, if there is one, to pull it off."
Keselowski's victory in the Contender Round finale at Talladega made him an automatic qualifier for the current round of eight, but it also helped soothe the heartache of a crash-related 36th at Kansas and a rough-and-tumble 16th at Charlotte. Now, all he needs is an encore.
"Yeah, it's been tough but it builds character and makes us stronger," Keselowski said. "Like I said, with this format, we're by no means out."
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