Keselowski and Hornish have tough night at Bristol

Brad Keselowski (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 30th
WHAT HAPPENED? “Something happened to the 55 car, Brian Vickers, and he checked-up. I don’t know if he had an engine problem or something of that nature and it just checked-up the whole line. I couldn’t go anywhere and got hit from behind and it put me into the fence. Not really anybody’s fault. It’s just a combination of factors of the way the racing is now here. We got caught up in it.”

HOW WAS YOUR CAR UP TO THAT POINT? “Yeah, we were just fair. You know, we weren’t prepared for the track to drive this stupid and that’s what it is. It’s the way it is. We’ll come back here and adapt to it.”

WHAT ARE YOUR CHANCES OF GETTING BACK OUT THERE? “Yeah, I think we’ll get back out, just severely wounded and not able to get a great finish. That’s just the way racing is.”

A MOMENT AGO YOU CALLED THE CHANGES TO THE TRACK STUPID. WHAT WAS IT LIKE OUT THERE? “Yeah, I know the goal was to make a one-groove racetrack so there’d be more action. But it had an inverse affect to where now everybody is running up against the wall. And the pace of the field, combined with hard tires has made the track just even more of an aerodynamic fest.”

Sam Hornish Jr., Penske Racing Dodge

Photo by: Action Sports Photography

Sam Hornish Jr. (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 34th “It was tough tonight for sure. After seeing how the race played out, you know, I could have just got away from all the guys that I was worried about and running around. We got pushed from the middle of three and four all the way to the exit until we got wrecked. There’s only so much you can do about that. I guess the only thing that I could’ve done different was not been in that position with that car behind me. Outside of that, even after they put a whole new rear end housing in it and a bunch of new part on the front end, we could run decent lap times and run with guys that finished 16th and 17th. I feel like we had a good car and we should have rode around the back a little bit more in the early part of the race when everybody was right up at the top beating the heck out of each other. That wasn’t a good spot to be in. I wish I could redo it. Everybody thinks at Bristol you’ve got to get to the front. If we’d have just waited we’d have been fine. I saw a car out there that ran in the back, was laps down multiple times and got back on the lead lap right at the end of the race and finished top 20. You’ve just got to be smart about it and if these people are racing too hard and beating each other up too much, get away from ‘em and try it different. It’ll probably suit you a little bit better in the end anyhow.”

WERE YOU SURPRISED THAT THE GROOVE WAS UP AGAINST THE OUTSIDE WALL? “You know, I kept thinking that people would be running up there and that somebody was going to make it work on the bottom in practice. Then once the race started it was like man, you can make it work but it’s kind of like Daytona or Talladega. You have a set period of time when you pull out until you get around that car or else everybody else is going to file in behind you and you’re going to be stuck and hung out to dry. There were guys that would just muscle their way back up into the top and it was all about you being patient enough to let ‘em go. And there are certain people that can get away with it and certain people that can’t. That’s racing.”

Source: SRT Motorsports