Team Penske Hollywood Casino 400 Race Preview

THE NEWS AND NOTES

·    TOP SEED STEED: Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion have held the top seed in the Chase since winning the final race of the regular season. The 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship-winning squad has four top-two finishes in the last six races, including two victories.

·    FRONT RUNNING FUSION: Coming into the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) season, Keselowski had led a total of 1,559 laps through 161 career starts. Thus far, through 29 starts this season, he has logged 1,496 laps at the front of the field, nearly doubling his lead lap production up to the beginning of this year.

·    KANSAS BY THE NUMBERS: Keselowski has nine NSCS starts at Kansas Speedway. He owns one victory (2011), two top-five and four top-10 finishes at the 1.5-mile oval.

·    LEADING QUALIFIER: As the owner of the highest average starting position in 2014 Sprint Cup Series competition this year (6.9 average start), Keselowski has earned a career-high five poles and a series leading 13 front row starts this year. The 30-year-old driver entered 2014 with three poles to his credit and now he has eight, just one short of doubling his previous career pole production this year.

·    HALL OF FAME CONTENDER: On Wednesday of this week Keselowski, along with the 11 other Contender Round Chase competitors, will participate in an event at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The afternoon activities will include spending time with both the media and fans.

·    CASINO FAVORITE THURSDAY NIGHT: Miller Lite Ford driver Keselowski will make an appearance at the Turn 2 Lounge in the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway this Thursday night, beginning at 7:30 pm local time.

·    A DIFFERENT KIND OF DRAFTING: Keselowski keeps the flow of advice coming as he pours drafts for Miller Lite in his role as #BartenderBrad. A new episode of the online video feature was released early this week and there are more planned for the coming weeks.

·    WELCOME TO ROUND TWO:  This weekend begins the second round of the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup, the Contender Round. With his win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Joey Logano heads into the round as the second seed behind his Team Penske teammate Brad Keselowski.  Logano scored three top-five finishes – a win and two fourths – in the first three races of the Chase.  Logano was the only driver to accomplish that feat and his average finish of 3.0 was the best of all 16 Chase contenders over the course of the first three events.

·    BEFORE THE RESET:  Logano’s fourth-place finish at Dover last weekend kept him ranked second in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings prior to the points reset for the Contender Round.  Logano was just four points behind Keselowski in the point standings before the reset.

·    THE NUMBERS CONTINUE TO GROW:  With Keselowski’s second-place finish at Dover and Logano’s fourth-place finish, the duo each earned their 13th top-five results, the best of all drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.  Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth are all next with 11 top fives a piece. Logano’s 18 top-10 finishes, one behind his career-best single-season mark that came last season, ranks second in the series behind Gordon’s 19.

·    A PAIR OF FOURTHS:  In Logano’s last two appearances at Kansas Speedway, the 24-year-old driver has come away with a pair of fourth-place finishes. Those are Logano’s only two top-10 results at the 1.5-mile track over the course of his 10 career starts. Logano has qualified well at the track, starting inside the top 10 six times, including second in the spring race earlier this season.

·    A PAIR OF HOME GROWN 22 CREW:  Two members of the “22 Crew” grew up in the Kansas area.  Mechanic Eric “Stretch” Bailey is from Olathe, Kansas, which is just 20 miles from Kansas Speedway.  Front tire carrier Dylan Dowell is from Fowler, Kansas, located about five hours southwest of the race track.

THE BROADCAST

Race: Hollywood Casino 400

Track: Kansas Speedway

Race Start Time: 2:00 pm ET

Radio Broadcast:  Live on MRN & SIRIUS XM NASCAR Channel 90

TV Schedule

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

1:00 pm ET, Practice (FS1)

5:30 pm ET, Qualifying (ESPN2)

11:00 am ET, Practice (FS1)

2:00 pm ET, Final Practice (FS2)

2:00 pm ET, Hollywood Casino 400  (ESPN)

THE Q&A

BRAD KESELOWSKI, NO. 2 MILLER LITE FORD

YOU ARE THE TOP SEED HEADING INTO THE FIRST RACE OF THE CONTENDER ROUND. WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU THINK OF KANSAS?

“I won my first race as the driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite car at Kansas back in 2011 and that makes this track kind of special to the team and me. We didn’t run as well as we would’ve liked to in the spring race earlier this year so that gives us added determination to improve our performance this weekend. The team has been working diligently on enhancing our platform for this race, and we should be good this weekend. We are going into Kansas with the confidence of our recent successes and having a win here adds to that as well. It would be great to come out of this one on top.”

PAUL WOLFE, CREW CHIEF, NO. 2 MILLER LITE FORD

KANSAS HAS BEEN A BIT OF A CHALLENGE SINCE THE REPAVE. DO YOU FEEL AS THOUGH YOU HAVE SOMETHING FOR THE TRACK THIS WEEKEND?

“This track does provide new challenges since it was reconfigured and repaved a while back. It has taken us some time to catch up with it so to speak. We have put a fair amount of effort into the set-ups for this track based on what we learned there earlier this year. It becomes even more important to run well here with the new Chase format. The team has been building great cars, and we’ve been executing well at the track. As long as we keep our steady progression of refinement and improvement both on and off of the track, we should be alright.”

JOEY LOGANO, NO. 22 SHELL-PENNZOIL FORD

ANOTHER WEEK AND ANOTHER TOP-FIVE FINISH UNDER YOUR BELT. ARE YOU READY TO START OVER WITH THE CONTENDER ROUND THIS WEEKEND IN KANSAS?

“We just have to keep doing what we are doing.  I’m pretty proud to look at the sheet and know that we are the only team in the entire series that got top fives in the first three races of the Chase, and we had the best average finish. I know Brad and his team had the second-best average finish, so I think that says a lot about Team Penske and how we are doing right now.  We just need to keep doing what we are doing. No reason to reinvent the wheel. The things we have been doing all year long have been working, so we just need to keep doing things the same way. We can make a few tweaks here and there, and that’s what you need to do to stay competitive.  I know we’d really like to go out there and win Kansas or Charlotte so we cannot worry about Talladega and be locked into the next round.”

UNDER THE OLD CHASE FORMAT, YOU AND YOUR TEAMMATE WOULD BE IN A REALLY GOOD POSITION RIGHT NOW. DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT AT ALL?

“I was telling someone about that this past weekend after the race. I like the new format and the elimination, but under the old format, we would be one-two, and we would only be four points out of the point leader. That wouldn’t be too bad for sure. It would be fun to chase Brad for the Championship.  But there are still seven races left and a lot of stuff can change. We are just focused on one race at a time and this weekend that is Kansas. After that, we will focus on Charlotte and after that Talladega. We can’t look too far ahead because that is what will take you out of this. We just want to do the best we can this coming weekend.”