Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Thursday, May 23, 2019
EVENT: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Media Availabilities
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – WHAT DOES THIS WEEKEND MEAN TO YOU WITH IT BEING MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND? “The Coke 600 is a big race in our sport. Is it 60 years? Wow. Not only is it on Memorial Day Weekend, which I think means a lot to us and to the sport. Going back to the very founders of the sport and most of them being war veterans of some type, or some having experience post World War II, I think the ties to the military run very, very deep and it’s something we’re extremely proud to showcase on Memorial Day Weekend, but furthermore the race being 60 years old it’s become a very prestigious race to win with its own kind of folklore, and so it’s what we would call to borrow a term from another sport a major. I feel like we’ve been close to winning this race, haven’t pulled that off. It certainly would mean a lot to me for both of those reasons if we were able to win this weekend, so coming off last week. We didn’t quite have the showing we wanted, but the week before that in Kansas was really, really strong and kind of coming off of that as far as from a season perspective we have good reason to be enthusiastic, but this race presents a number of really large challenges. I don’t think there’s any track like this that goes through such a transition from day to night, nor is there a track like this where we run 600 miles, so the physical toll is very grueling and the mental toll of trying to have to stay on top of your car and what it needs to be the fastest it can be and how you need to drive it to be the fastest it can be is a good challenge for us and one I certainly enjoy.”
DO YOU PREFER THE OVAL OR THE ROVAL, AND DOES THE SPORT NEED A 600-MILE RACE? “I think first off to try to prefer one race over another, I think, is a huge mistake for any driver. People always ask me what my favorite track is and I always answer the same thing all the time and it’s any track that you win at. I have not won at the Roval, but I was pretty darn close before I wrecked along with most of the field over here in turn one last fall. It would be very special to win, but I haven’t won it. I would say that I have an opportunity each and every week to make the track we’re at my favorite track and I don’t ever think of it any deeper than that because I think you can play mind games with yourself if you do. That’s probably not the yes or no, true or false answer you were looking for, but that’s my honest approach. As far as running 600 miles we don’t need to do anything in this sport, but just because you don’t need to do something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something. I think it’s the right thing to do, to run this race as 600 miles and to keep that tradition going. Like I said, it’s unique challenges. The biggest thing this sport needs is to stay fresh and this race is a different challenge than anything else we have by a good bit, and I appreciate that so much about this race. I appreciate that you’re gonna go through the daytime and you’re gonna be burning hot and the car is gonna be out of control and then we’re gonna transition to night time and the cars are gonna be just crazy fast, and you’re gonna see a lot of great side-by-side action as we get into night time. I think that’s tremendous, so I’m really looking forward to it to be quite honest. That’s only possible because of the 600 miles, and then you have some other things. There’s naturally some attrition to this race that you don’t see in other races, which I like. I think it’s a big part of this sport and a big part of being a race car driver is managing the systems that make up a car and with that in mind having 600 miles to do it means more opportunities for that to go wrong and I like that about it, but I really like the history of this race in general and it seems like for whatever reason over the last few years that question keeps coming up more and more and more and I resist it so much because of how much respect I have for this race that I’d hate to see it ever change.”
WHERE DO YOU ASSESS TEAM PENSKE IS RIGHT NOW COMPARED TO GIBBS AND SHR CARS? “I think the Stewart-Haas cars, in my opinion, have been really fast all season long it just hasn’t come together for them for whatever reason. They know probably better than I do, and I think Kyle has been really strong, the 20 car has been pretty good, the 11 car has been pretty good. I feel like we’re kind of neck-and-neck with the Gibbs cars and every other week it can go either way. I honestly feel right now the Hendrick cars are the best cars. I feel like they really came on strong over the last two or three weeks and had some nice updates to their stuff, so I would expect them to be the ones to beat this weekend.”
HAVE YOU NOTICED A HEIGHTENED DEPENDENCY ON PURE SPEED THIS YEAR? “Honestly, I did not know that and I’m a little bit surprised by that. I would have thought it was actually a little different, so I can’t say I’ve honestly noticed to date the more importance of speed. In a lot of ways I sometimes feel a little bit different. I feel like the fifth to 10th range is kind of like a lottery ballpark, but that’s very interesting to think of it that way. At the very base of this sport you still have to be fast. There’s no way around that, and whatever rules there are out there we can try to make them closer, but you’re still gonna have cars that are faster than others and we’ve had some pretty decent speed with our team, so I can’t really complain at all, but I do notice that when you’re in the lead it’s harder to drive away, but you still need to be really fast to make that pass on second place to get to the lead or the leader to get to there. So I would say that there’s definitely an emphasis on speed. It’s probably as hard as it’s ever been to pass the leader, but I think it’s probably a little bit easier to pass from there on back.”
CAN YOU LOOK AHEAD TO POCONO AND WHAT WE CAN EXPECT ON THE CUP SIDE? “It’ll be interesting to see how well they draft. Obviously, the XFINITY cars ran it last year and that presented its own set of challenges. I’m not really sure what to expect with the Cup cars. It’s interesting. I think the guys were telling me that we were not gonna be allowed to shift there. I don’t know how that’s gonna play into effect as well. You would think with those long straightaways you’ll get a pretty good draft, but then again without being able to shift I suspect you’ll have a hard time getting launched off the corner to take advantage of that draft. I can’t really say I have a great feel for it at the moment. We’ll go there and race and find out, but it should be a very interesting challenge.”
DO YOU HAVE TO GET A NEW STRATEGY IN ATTACKING POCONO IF SHIFTING ISN’T AN OPTION? “Well maybe I should clarify that. We’re allowed to shift, but the rules were changed on the transmissions to make it to where you basically can’t shift, so, yes, maybe I should have clarified that a little bit. The first thing is I haven’t really thought about Pocono one bit. I try to go one week at a time. That way I’m giving the most effort I possibly can for the race that’s in front of me, but when we get there it’s just how fast can you learn. How fast can you adapt. It’s a big challenge being a Cup driver, it always has been as the technology changes, as the rules change the requirements that your car has to make the fastest lap time possible change in the techniques that you have to input. I think it’s an accepted challenge to be a driver at the Cup level. It’s an interesting challenge. I feel like if you look at other sports the techniques change and there’s always gonna be a quarterback from today is not the same as a quarterback from 20 years ago, but I don’t know if they change as fast as they do in motorsports. I mean, shoot, techniques and tactics and all that good stuff only seems to last six months or maybe even less at this level, so I think it’s an accepted part of the challenge and from a mental perspective you either get on board or you get out and I appreciate that challenge.”
WHAT WAS YOUR TAKEAWAY FROM THE GOODYEAR MEETING? “I did not attend.”
WHEN IS THE DUE DATE AND HOW DOES YOUR PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WEIGH ON YOU AS YOU START THIS NEW JOURNEY WITH A SECOND CHILD? “I think it definitely weighs on you. Obviously, my wife hasn’t been at the race track for the last few months and that’s intentional because, one, the strain on her and, two, because we didn’t want a bunch of people asking her about it because of those things that can happen, but I can’t really say it’s weighed on me other than just trying to be as supportive as I can of my wife. The realistic part is that she’s doing most of the work. They say we’re having a baby, but it’s more she’s having the baby and I’m cheering, but it’s still a great time and I’m thankful for the blessings I have in my life.”
A FIRST-TIME PARENT THERE IS SO MUCH EXCITEMENT AND UNKNOWN. DOES THAT CHANGE HOW YOU GO THROUGH IT THIS TIME? “Due date is banquet week. I guess I don’t plan on changing anything. I’m just gonna do the best I can to be a responsible, great parent and to show the most amount of love that I know how to show and realize that it can all be taken away from you at a moment’s notice, but hope and believe that it won’t. I wish I had a better answer than that.”
HOW DID THE NEGOTIATIONS GO WITH YOUR DAUGHTER ON WHERE TO PUT THE MARTINSVILLE CLOCK AND WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE THE FIRST TIMERS STARTING THIS RACE ON SUNDAY? “I think the first one is Mr. Penske has the trophy at the moment, the clock. Mine hasn’t come in and when it comes in we’ll continue those negotiations. The second one I would say drink lots of water. This race, for whatever reason, you just feel like you lose the most amount of weight and you get the most dehydrated from of any race during the year. It’s a very grueling challenge. It’s real easy to lose sight of the fact that there are so many laps to go. Don’t look at the scoreboard. That advice, by the way, goes for fans and media members alike because when you look up at the scoreboard and it’s lap 100 and you see there are still 300 to go that can drag you down a little bit. So don’t look at that and stay hydrated and do the best you can.”
DO YOU SEE THE RULES HAVING A BIGGER IMPACT ON ONE CERTAIN CORNER AT POCONO? “It will probably have a really large impact on turn three because it’s so long and flat of a corner. It’s the most one-groove corner on the track right now, so when you’re behind somebody you’re gonna lose a lot of pace right there and try to recover it down the frontstretch with the way the aerodynamics are, so that will probably be the most challenging part.”
DOES THE FRONTSTRETCH AT POCONO START AT THE ENTRY OF TURN THREE? “It starts with wherever you pick up the gas in the center of turn three, and with that in mind it’s a long one, but I honestly feel like the backstretch there is more important than the front stretch, being able to keep your run off of turn one and make a pass into the tunnel turn seems to be a better position to pass as of late.”
HOW MUCH WILL THE HEAT AFFECT HOW YOU PERFORM SUNDAY? “I think it’s gonna be a really grueling challenge on the drivers and the race cars. I think when you have these kind of temps that we’re expecting this weekend it’s just really hard on all the systems, the engine specifically, and then that heat makes its way inside the car and creates some physical fatigue that makes you mentally tired as well. I think that challenge runs deep and there’s no challenge like it during the season than this race. You try to come prepared. A lot of that is on the team and how they do the car, but on the driver you’ve got to stay ahead of this race for sure.”
YOU WON AT POCONO EIGHT YEARS AGO WITH A BROKEN ANKLE. WAS THAT A WATERSHED MOMENT IN YOUR CAREER? “It was big. Was it the biggest moment of my career? No, but there are certain time periods in your life that leave kind of stamps, maybe steer the direction and that was a big one for me – not the biggest but a big one. It really got my team behind me and really got a lot of things going in a positive fashion for Team Penske and in my career, and I feel so very fortunate to have had that run. When you have runs like that all you think to yourself is, ‘Why can’t I do that every time?’ But that’s not how it goes and that streak is one that really helped propel us the next season to believing we could win a championship.”
