2 Team Going For 2 at Loudon

Brad Keselowski earned himself some well-deserved breathing room with his playoff-opening victory at Chicagoland Speedway last Sunday. The win locked him into the Contender Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, but as he is well aware, winning NASCAR’s biggest title is all about momentum—something he doesn’t want to give away over the next two races.

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.

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“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.

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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.

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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.