Keselowski and Allmendinger talk about Kentucky qualifying efforts

Brad Keselowski (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 8th

Brad Keselowski, Penske Racing Dodge

Photo by: Action Sports Photography

YOU SAID ON THE RADIO THAT YOU WERE GOING TO BUY YOUR CREW A BEER. “Yeah, I’ve got this beer deal, I don’t know if you’ve heard about it: Miller Lite (smiles). You know, they give me a bunch of free stuff which is great. I’ll go to a bar with ‘em and buy it, how about that. They did a great job today fighting through some adversity and the Miller Lite Dodge was pretty fast. For me to qualify second, that’s pretty good. You know I’m not a very good qualifier. Obviously this is a great race car and can’t say how much I look forward to racing it here tomorrow night here under the lights at Kentucky.”

YOU HAD SOME CONTACT EARLIER IN THE DAY DURING PRACTICE WITH JUAN PABLO MONTOYA. WHAT HAPPENED? “Well, I think we probably all agree that I ran into the back of ‘em. I think that’s probably where the common ground is. From there, there’s probably some varying opinions. That’s something that him and I will hopefully be able to work through and if not, so be it. You know for me, I feel like you know, I can’t let people push me around in this sport and my team works really damn hard to put me in position where I have fast race cars like I’ve got. And you know I’ve got to show ‘em that I care enough about ‘em to deserve those cars. So allowing other people to push me around on the racetrack is something that I’m not going to stand for.”

COMMENT ON THE CHANGING TRACK AND WEATHER CONDITIONS. “The track is different. It’s been changing on us with the windstorm and all those things. I feel very lucky to have a great car, a backup car. It’s really fast and I’m looking forward to Saturday.”

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY BETWEEN YOU AND MONTOYA? “You know the bottom line is that I ran into the back of him and we can argue if there was reason to or not but that’s the bottom line and we made contact and I had to get out a backup car.”

DID YOU TALK WITH NASCAR ABOUT THE INCIDENT? “Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I understood all the rules. Mike (Helton) and John (Darby) and all those guys did a good job with helping me get through that.”

ARE YOU SATISFIED THAT IT’S OVER? “I don’t think so. I think we probably have some talking to do between Juan and I. I’ll let that be between Juan and I.”

YOU BUMPED HIM IN THE SECOND PRACTICE. WHY WERE YOU UPSET WITH HIM? “With the second practice I felt like he pulled up in front of me intentionally screwing my lap up again and I was done with that. Basically the same thing happened in the second practice that happened in the first practice.”

DO YOU THINK YOU’VE GOT TO LET PEOPLE KNOW NOT TO PUSH YOU AROUND IN THIS SPORT? IS THAT PAR FOR THE COURSE? “Absolutely, you have stand your ground. If I let one person push me around I let everybody push me around and that’s not going to happen. My team works way too hard. I’m not going to stand for that.”

A.J. Allmendinger (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 16th

“I pretty much struggle around this place right now so it’s just trying to figure it out, really. Just trying to get better but really disappointed with that lap.”

THIS IS AN ODD SHAPED TRACK WITH A LOT OF CORNER AND NOT MUCH STRAIGHTAWAY. “Yeah and it’s rough and it’s slick now. I just have a lot of work to do to try to figure it out. The car has been okay but it’s not fantastic. I think the 2 car (Keselowski) is really good. Brad is really good around here too so that helps a lot.”

DID THE CHANGE IN WEATHER CONDITIONS THROW YOU A CURVE? “I mean it helped everybody that got to go after that. The track was a lot cooler. The biggest thing was the wind, trying to figure out how much to back the corners up. We just have to get better.”

Source: SRT Motorsports