Now just a piece of dust to his big win on Sunday, Brad Keselowski also found himself victorious in Saturday’s Nationwide Series Sam Boyd 300. For Keselowski, getting the win this year felt like redemption after the last couple of years. In his last two starts at Las Vegas prior to the win, he had come close – thought ended up finishing 23rd and 27th.
Though Keselowski had his share of obstacles to come as there as an alternator problem late in the race, which caused the battery to not keep charged. As a result, the bolts kept dropping and there were questions whether it would last.
“At that point you just go into safe mode and shut everything off that you can and hope that the battery makes it to the end. Fortunately, there weren’t many laps to go,” crew chief Jeremy Bullins said. “We felt like we were losing a little power at the end, but we were close enough to hang on.”
There was also the deal of getting through the heavy lap traffic that they kept coming up on – which Keselowski compared to a game of tetris.
“You’re just trying to weave your way through,” he added. “‘Oh, I missed one,’ and then you hit one. I hit some lapped car here, I don’t even know which one it was going into one, and then another guy wrecked in front of me. I was like, ‘Geez, will you guys just stop.’ Kyle wasn’t far behind me and my car wasn’t running quite right to begin with and the last thing I needed was that to go with it, but we made it through and I guess that’s the most important thing.”
While the win may sink to mean nothing as a result of it being a Sprint Cup driver behind the wheel, the win still means something to the guys on the team, like Bullins, as it shows their efforts are paying off.
“I’m very proud of the team and the effort that’s gone into the 22 cars over the last few seasons has been tremendous,” Keselowski commented. “They’re just consistent front-runners and it’s really a privilege to drive because you know you’re gonna have a shot at winning each and every week and that’s not lost on me – how hard that is to do to put together a team like that and a car like that.”
Bullins stressed that over the off-season, he and the team focused on improving to get stronger than they were last year, even with winning the owner’s championship.
“We came here with a few things different and weren’t as good as we needed to be. We made some good changes overnight and had a good car when the race started” Bullins. “It was kind of an up-and-down day. We had a good pit stop and a bad pit stop, a good restart and a not-so-good restart, so it was a little bit up-and-down, but there was more up than down so that was good. We overcame some issues at the end and held on for the win.”
Many people have stressed their disagreement about Sprint Cup Series drivers running Nationwide Series races. However, lost in the frustration, is the hard work of these games. Jeremy Bullins is trying to put together taht winning combination just as hard as Adam Stevens is at Joe Gibbs Racing with Kyle Busch, and Ernie Cope is at JR Motorsports with Kevin Harvick.
Each of these crew chiefs have younger guys underneath them that are improving with each step and building their program. One day, these younger guys will step out on their own – whether to be a crew chief or work on the Sprint Cup Series side.
The win may not say much for the driver, but it does show for these guys that their efforts are paying off.
