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Race report

Talladega: Keselowski and Gilliland quotes

Brad Keselowski: “I just spun out in front of the whole field.

Brad Keselowski, Team Penske Ford

Brad Keselowski, Team Penske Ford

Action Sports Photography

BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion

WHAT HAPPENED? “I just spun out in front of the whole field. I don’t know why, if I just busted my butt on my own or lost a tire, but I feel bad for everyone that got torn up. We had a really fast Team Penske Ford, but I just feel bad for the whole Miller Lite team.”

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST INCIDENT? “We took the lead there and made a really aggressive move to take the lead and then it all just kind of bottlenecked from there. I don’t know if I cut somebody off or got ran over, but just enough to get spun out and tear the car up.”

WHAT HAPPENED? “We were just racing really hard towards the front half of the field. I was trying to get my lap back and those guys are trying to lead laps. There’s obviously a long way to go and I just had to get to the front and try to stay up there to try and get my lap back. I was racing really hard for that, but for some reason the car took off on me and I spun out. I don’t know why, but I feel bad that we tore up a bunch of cars.” WHAT HAPPENED WITH DANICA? “I’m not really sure what happened. I made an aggressive move to take the lead and the next thing I knew I was spinning, so I’m not really sure. Obviously, there was some kind of contact but I don’t know what happened.”

A BYPRODUCT OF TALLADEGA? “Every wreck is a byproduct of Talladega. That’s just the track we’re on, but racing hard – everybody wants to lead laps, everybody wants to run up front and certainly I wanted to get my laps back and have a shot to win at the end and the only way I was gonna do that was by being really aggressive at the front half of the field.”

STILL 41 CARS ON THE LEAD LAP. “Yeah, and that’s even more the reason why I had to race hard to get my lap back because I was at the back half of that.”

HOW AGGRESSIVE WAS THIS RACE BY COMPARISON TO THE LAST COUPLE YEARS? “The cars are handling a lot worse than I thought they would and I think everybody is kind of fighting that. Everybody still has the same level of aggression as when the cars handled a little better and sometimes we learn the hard way.”

THERE’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN FRUSTRATION AND SUCCESS. “Yeah, we had a lot of close calls and I guess most of them were my fault, but I’m just being real aggressive. That’s what it’s gonna take to win here and whoever wins here will be really aggressive, too.”

WAS IT A CASE WHERE DANICA DIDN’T GIVE YOU ENOUGH ROOM? “I don’t know. I’d have to go back and look at it.”

WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND AT THE END? IS THERE A FEELING SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN? “You assume something is gonna happen, but you don’t know. That’s why I had to race so hard. I was one or two debris yellows from being back in the race and I wasn’t gonna give up.”

DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion

“I thought my car was good. We got in that accident and I don’t know if the motor got a little warm when we opened up the duct work, but it just wasn’t our day. We felt really good. I think our car was good. We were just kind of playing it out and seeing what lane I could make moves in and what we needed to do to adjust on the car to be able to run in the lane I wanted to run at the end. I felt really good about it, but unfortunately our day has ended a little bit early. All in all, it was a good day. We had good speed here all weekend and I’m proud of the guys. We’ll come back ready for Daytona.”

Ford Racing

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