Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Pure Michigan 400 Advance – Michigan International Speedway
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion, is heading to his home track this weekend as Michigan International Speedway hosts the annual Pure Michigan 400 on Sunday afternoon. Keselowski, a native of Rochester Hills, MI, spoke about returning home and the high drag package that will be making its second appearance this season as part of a NASCAR Teleconference Tuesday morning.
BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO RETURN TO MICHIGAN? “It’s a good week. It’s busy, but a very good week to be back in Michigan. Starting tomorrow we’re gonna get in there early and do some autograph signings and appearance signings with fans, spend some time at the Woodward Dream Cruise, which as everyone in the area knows has been a staple in the community as far as race week is concerned, so we’re looking forward to that and, of course, the two races – first with the Camping World Truck Series and as you mentioned with Cooper Standard and my foundation teaming up for the Careers for Veterans 200, which is always an exciting race with the trucks and the way they race at Michigan and draft and do those crazy things. That’s one of my favorite races of the year to watch and it’s certainly a pleasure and an honor to be a part of being a presenting sponsor and kind of showcasing how important the veteran cause is for both Cooper Standard and myself and our foundation, The Checkered Flag Foundation. So that’s going to be really exciting. I’m hoping that Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney can have two good runs with Tyler Reddick leading in the points and having a tremendous season. We want to see that keep going and just all in all want to have a great race there Saturday, and then transition to the Cup race on Sunday. It will certainly be a bit of a wild card race with the aero package that will be similar to what we raced at Indianapolis in the Sprint Cup Series. We’re not sure what to expect. Indianapolis was certainly a trial version, but Indianapolis and Michigan are two very, very different race tracks so we really don’t know what’s gonna happen, but we’re ready for the challenge. We had a great race with the previous aero package at Michigan in June when I thought we had a second or third-place car and kind of got shuffled with pit strategy at the end to a sixth-place finish, but we’ve had a lot of speed in general the last month or so at Team Penske with obviously what you saw with Joey at Pocono as well as Watkins Glen and some good performances with the 2 car at Kentucky and Loudon, so I would expect us to be very fast and I’m really excited to have the opportunity to win a race in my home state, at my home track in Michigan at the Cup level. We’ve done it before at the XFINITY level winning two races. We’ve come very close at the Cup level finishing second with quite a few top-5s and top-10s, but haven’t been able to punch through and get that one. I think this could be the time. This could be the year.”
AT INDY IT SEEMED LIKE CARS GOT LOOSE WHEN THEY STARTED TO PICK UP THE DRAFT BEHIND SOMEBODY. WHY WOULD MICHIGAN BE ANY DIFFERENT? “That’s a very good question. I don’t expect it to be much different as far as the way the cars handle behind each other. Perhaps the only difference could be between the two tracks is Michigan has a much wider groove in theory and the potential to run different lanes in the corners. The way the aerodynamics work specific to this high draft package certainly you want to be in line down the straightaway to get the maximum effect of the loss of drag, but you kind of want to be staggered in the corners to try to keep your downforce in the corner when you need it to keep the car going through the corners as fast as possible. At Indianapolis you don’t have a lot of width to really pull that off, but at Michigan I think there’s quite a bit more width to the track, especially down in turns three and four to where you could possibly pull that maneuver off.”
DO YOU WANT ANY CHANGES TO THE AERO RULES FOR THE CHASE OR KEEP THINGS THE SAME? “First off, I’d like to see a lot of changes on the aero front, but not changes that we’re uncertain about. I don’t think we’ve come up with the platform that we would all believe is perfect with the tests that we’ve done so far. We still have a lot of work to do. I’m not in favor of making changes unless we have something that everyone inside the industry feels confident and knows would improve it.”
AFTER THIS RACE IF THIS PACKAGE LOOKS OR HANDLES THE SAME AT INDY WILL IT BE ENOUGH OF A SAMPLE FOR DRIVERS TO MAKE A JUDGEMENT ON WHETHER OR NOT IT WORKED? “Oh yeah. I think clearly if you have two races on this package, that was really made for Michigan and Indianapolis, we should have a very strong indication as to the success factors for this package. I would say after these two races we’ll know exactly where we stand.”
IS IT FAIR TO SAY YOU SOMEWHAT KNOW ABOUT THE OTHER PACKAGE YET AS FAR AS THE LOWER DOWNFORCE PACKAGE OR WILL DARLINGTON DICTATE THE SUCCESS OF THAT? “I would like to see a second race at Darlington to give that a complete answer as well. Kentucky has always been a little bit on its own as a race track. Certainly I think the racing at Kentucky was better than it has been in years past, but I would say that one race at any track is not a large enough sampling size to really brand the whole series to a specific package.”
IS IT TOO LATE TO TRY LOW DOWNFORCE AGAIN IF THE RACE AT DARLINGTON GOES WELL OR DOES NASCAR NEED TO SET THE RULES AND SAY THIS IS WHAT WE’RE GOING TO RUN DURING THE CHASE AND LEAVE IT THAT WAY? “I don’t believe and have never believed that it’s too late to do anything the right way. If everyone believes that one package is heads and tails a better package, then we’ve got to find a way to make it work and get it in front of our plans. So I don’t believe it’s ever too late. Certainly there is some consideration to Goodyear, our tire supplier, and some of their timelines of constructing tires to really fit these packages, so certainly there is some consideration there. My understanding of that is it’s a two-month process, so if you make that decision within this two-month window for these Chase races, we should be more than capable of executing it. That’s what I’d like to see, but at the end of the day it’s not my call, it’s NASCAR’s call.”
IT SEEMS STRATEGY IN THE PITS HAVE SEEN SOME UNCHARACTERISTIC MISCUES BY YOUR TEAM, SPECIFICALLY KENTUCKY, NEW HAMPSHIRE OR POCONO. HAVE YOU TALKED ABOUT THAT OR IS IT MORE CIRCUMSTANCES THAN EXECUTION THAT HAS KEPT YOU FROM WINNING LATELY? “It’s a bit of both to answer your question perfectly. Certainly at Kentucky I would say we did not execute, but then I look at Loudon and say there was oil on the track for 10 laps. We ran through the oil for 10 laps. One car pits and puts on four tires and with those four tires passes the leaders, gets his lap back and NASCAR decides to throw the yellow. In that particular instance, there was no strategy that was gonna beat those circumstances, so I look at that one and say circumstances. I look at Kentucky and say execution, and probably in between looking at Pocono I probably cost us a shot at the win with sliding through my pit box and hitting my pit crew guy during the race. We were able to recover to second without wondering what might have been had we not had those issues. And then Watkins Glen this week it was complete circumstances. The one car I think hit somebody and drove around the track for a lap with oil lines leaking and we had a five or six-lap yellow flag period that opened up the window for Joey and even the 4 car and those guys to be able to make it on fuel. So those particular circumstances are outside our control. We know that. We try to control what we can, but certainly the ones that are in our control – the execution issues – that was my fault at Pocono and some issues with a guy falling down at Kentucky on a pit stop – those are things that we can control. So we need to focus on the things that we can control. I know the speed is good, which is great. That’s where you start. I look at 2012 and our speed was just as good as it was then. Our execution is not quite where we want it to be, but with the way these Chase brackets work, I think we have the opportunity to get that execution where it needs to be for when it counts. All we really need to do is break through each bracket and get to Homestead and knock it out of the ballpark and I know my team is capable of doing it and I know that I’m capable of doing it. We just have a few little things to clean up for sure.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE CHANGES TO THE INTERIOR PIT WALL AT MICHIGAN AND DID THE HEALTH INCIDENT WITH YOUR DAUGHTER SCARLETT TEACH YOU SOME LIFE LESSONS? “For sure. I’m pleased to say my family is doing very well. Certainly that’s a tough experience to go through, but I kind of count the blessing on it and think of how all those things kind of came together perfectly with off weeks and the way things unfolded as good as they can for the situation. Certainly those are very galvanizing moments that probably affect you in ways you don’t realize until many years down the road, but I feel lucky to have a great family and support structure to get through it. Whether its Paige, or guys like Roger, who helped me get in the hospital and get her taken care of, I felt very lucky and fortunate. It was certainly a very difficult but galvanizing time for Paige and I, and, in some ways, it was an incredible moment for me and the Penske family to kind of galvanize together as well with the help they gave me through the process. It was certainly not the most enjoyable in the moment situation to go through, but I think it’s a moment that we’ll certainly take something away from for the rest of my life and has brought me closer to my personal life and professional life all in one instance. So it was kind of incredibly difficult, strange, but inspiring thing to go through. As it pertains to Michigan and the pit road wall, I haven’t seen it but I’m not sure exactly what to expect. I like the ideas behind it and I appreciate any track that kind of takes their own steps, as it appears Michigan has done, to take their safety to the next level. Safety is always a moving target, especially as the cars change and as they get faster and new rules packages come out things happen that we’ve never seen before. This year alone we’ve seen multiple incidents on the track that we’ve never seen before and we’ll continue to see incidents like that in the future that we’ve never seen before as the racing continues to migrate into different forms with different tactics. This week in particular we know we’re gonna see different tactics with drafting and all those other different things, and I’m sure those are gonna open up even new things that we haven’t thought of. At Indianapolis it was cockpit temperatures. At Michigan it could be something else we’ve never thought of and in order to get through those developments from a safety perspective tracks need to be on the cutting edge and need to be thinking a step ahead of this sport and its rules packages. So when I see a track like Michigan go out on a limb and make changes to improve the safety without necessarily a large voice in the garage demanding it, it makes me very proud and very happy to see. Roger Curtis and his staff deserve a lot of credit for that.”
FRANK KIMMEL IS COMING UP ON 600 STARTS IN THE ARCA SERIES. WHAT IS IT ABOUT HIM THAT HAS MADE HIM SO SUCCESSFUL? “Frank is actually the guy who introduced me to my girlfriend, Paige. We have a very close connection. Frank has done a lot of tremendous things. I can remember him as far back as when I was eight years old. We used to call him the big kid because he’s a big guy and he would walk around with squirt guns and squirt us as kids and we’d play with him back and forth and we had a grand old time. I can remember that and that was 20 years ago. To see his success, I always felt like I knew him before he was a big shot and he’d probably say the same thing to me. But to see Frank be as successful as he is now and to have all those starts and all those wins, championships, I just feel connected to him and feel lucky to know him as a friend of the family and just an all-around great guy. His success couldn’t have happened to a better person.”
HOW DID HE INTRODUCE YOU AND PAIGE AND I HEARD HE SERVED AS A BABYSITTER FOR ONCE? “Yeah, he babysat at Indianapolis and had a good time. He introduced Paige and I, I saw him at Kentucky and I went over to say hello and Paige was with him as a friend of the family. I asked him later. I said, ‘Who is that girl? She’s pretty cute.’ And that’s kind of how it all started.”
WOULD YOU BE OPEN TO RUNNING THE LONGER LAYOUT AT WATKINS GLEN IN FUTURE YEARS? “I’m a NASCAR driver, so I have no choice but to be open to whatever NASCAR says we’re gonna do. But if you’re asking for my opinion, I think it would be a bad move to change the track. The track is very successful right now. Our lap lengths are perfect. I think Watkins Glen is the best road course in the nation and in some ways probably in the world, so I would make as little change as possible to it if I were them.”
HAVE YOU SQUARED THINGS OR REACHED OUT TO MATT CRAFTON AFTER THE POCONO INCIDENT? “He and I obviously spoke very briefly after we had the incident at Pocono, but at the end of the day we wrecked and you can’t really change any of that. It’s my hope that he’ll get a chance to look at the replay and get a better idea of what exactly happened and understand that some of those situations are just kind of racing deals. I know that I didn’t make contact with him on purpose and on the other side I’m pretty sure he didn’t make contact with me on purpose considering where he’s at, and I destroyed a truck that I have to pay for, so I wasn’t particularly all that pleased as both an owner and a driver, and I’m sure he’s not very pleased as a driver who lost a lot of points. So I don’t think either one of us really won in that situation and I think that kind of speaks for itself.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE MANUFACTURER BATTLE THAT TAKES PLACE AT MICHIGAN? “It’s an incredible battle for the manufacturers and one that they take very, very seriously. Joey and I both have done all we can to score as many manufacturer points as possible over the last few weeks. It’s my understanding the battle is fairly close. I don’t have the numbers sitting in front of me right now, but I know it’s something that Ford talks about a lot. I think it’s pretty amazing that Ford is doing as well as they are considering the limited amount of teams that they have that are competing for wins right now across all three series, so we’re proud to be a part of that and hopefully we can carry them to that manufacturers’ title this year in all three series.”
DO YOU FEEL THE PRESSURE OF THAT? DO YOU GET THE FEELING FROM FORD THAT YOU HAVE TO STEP IT UP AT MICHIGAN? “I don’t feel any particular pressure for the manufacturers’ championship beyond if we go out and win the Sprint Cup championship we’ve done all we could do for them. So I’d put the Sprint Cup championship at the top of the podium and I think everything else falls in line if you’re able to make a solid run at that.”
WHAT KIND OF PRECAUTIONS HAVE YOU TAKEN AS FAR AS THE HEAT FACTOR INSIDE THE CAR YOU EXPERIENCED AT INDY? WILL IT BE AS MUCH OF A PROBLEM THIS WEEKEND? “I think the heat is gonna be even worse this weekend. There’s a large amount of concern across both the teams and drivers, really all members, for this rules package coming up to Michigan specific to the fact that even though the track is wider and bigger, the significance of the draft is gonna be even more important, so you’re gonna have to stay in line as much as possible. As you stay in line the car gets less and less air because that’s essentially how the draft works and the speeds at Michigan are higher than they are at Indianapolis, which means the parts, specifically the drivetrain are gonna be even hotter. I know the team is very, very concerned about the drivetrain, everything from the engine all the way back to the axles because they’re really not made for these temperatures. We kind of build our cars to the 110 percent rule, which is if 100 percent is what you expect a car under normal roads to carry you, you build in another 10 percent as a safety margin. That 100 percent was based around the rules package we began the year around and this particular iteration of that rules package has more than ate up that 10 percent margin that we theoretically work around with the cars. I would not be surprised to see a lot of car failures this weekend, specific to heat relation as it pertains to the aero package and its kind of cause and effects. And inside the car I would not be surprised to see a lot of hot and worn out drivers after the race. We all know we’re in for a handful of the race. We kind of got a hall pass at Indianapolis with race day being a little bit later than normal with scheduling and it was very cloudy most of the day and not quite as hot as what we’ve been accustomed to at Indianapolis, where it appears Michigan – the last time we checked the weather radar – it’s gonna be full sun and mid-80s. So that’s gonna be the toughest race probably of the year physically with this rules package.”
WHAT WILL PAUL DO FROM A COMFORT STANDPOINT TO MAKE IT LESS TAXING IN THE CAR? “He’s gonna tell me to suck it up is what he’s gonna do. If we have to route any extra air it’s gonna go to the parts on the car that we’re very much concerned about.”
HOW WELL DID YOU KNOW JOEY BEFORE HE JOINED TEAM PENSKE AND YOUR THOUGHTS ON HOW BOTH OF YOU ARE HAVING GOOD SEASONS? “It has been working out very well. Joey’s done a great job and Joey is on the path to winning a Sprint Cup championship. He’ll win one over the next few years for Team Penske and I think Roger knows that, everybody knows that, everybody is feeling that right now with his performance, so he has a lot to look forward to in his career. High tide raises all ships and I felt like just kind of watching Joey as a race car driver that he would get to this level where he’s at right now. I told Roger that two or three years ago right before he hired him. I wanted Joey to drive that car and I think Roger knew that and the reason why I wanted him to do that is just what I said, high tides raise all ships. As Joey continues to run better it can’t help but make my team better, whether that’s with the business model with respect to sponsors or at the manufacturer level with respect to their support, or even the team level with recruiting continuously better employees as ones are displaced over time. I think we’re very fortunate. Joey has certainly made me a better race car driver and I’m thankful to have him as a teammate.”
WHAT IS YOUR MINDSET IN TERMS OF MATCHING UP WITH THE COMPETITION? “We aren’t where we want to be. At this point last year we had three wins and right now we’re sitting at one. We’d like to have three or four more than we’ve got right now and I think we’ve had opportunities that we just haven’t been able to capitalize on, but I think we can hit those. I think we’re very close to being where we want to be. We have to make a few noticeable gains to get there, and those gains are in sight. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, but until we’re there we’re not there. We’ve got a few steps to make and I want to make sure we keep pushing as a team and as a company to get there because we’re not there.”
IS IT FRUSTRATING OR DOES IT WEAR ON YOU RIGHT NOW? “It’s frustrating to not have the wins that I think we’re capable of. For me, I look at tracks that I’ve never won at and felt like we were really strong at and didn’t quite close it out like Watkins Glen this week or Indianapolis we were really strong or a few others and I think, ‘what could have been.’ I certainly want to win at some of those tracks I’ve never won at. You want to win every week, but more specific to the ones we’ve never won at, but I know we’re on the cusp. As frustrating as it is to not win when you think you have an opportunity to do so, I think you have to temper it with the knowledge that you’re really close and sometimes everything has to just go your way and it hasn’t. But when it does, you can get on one of those streaks and I think that’s what we’re seeing out of Kyle. He’s caught some good breaks and he’s done a great job of executing along the way, across the board as a team and driver. We need to do all those things as well. We’ve had weeks where we’ve had if there are four pieces of the puzzle, whether it be speed, execution, a little bit of luck and so forth, we’ve been able to hit three and not four. It seems like a different piece of the puzzle we kind of miss, so it’s just part of the game. I know we can hit it because we have hit intermittently each one of those pieces. We just have to put it all together.”
