Keselowski says "bold moves" key to success at NASCAR plate tracks

Keselowski and his teammate, Joey Logano, won three of the superspeedway races last season, with Keselowski winning the spring race at Talladega, Ala., and the July Daytona race and Logano taking the victory in the fall race at Talladega during the playoffs.

The duo should again contend for the win this weekend in Sunday’s GEICO 500.

“Daytona seems to be more about the car and Talladega seems to be more about the driver and the moves,” Keselowski explained. “When you look at the plate tracks, you have to be more daring there, without a doubt. It takes bold moves to be successful at a plate track.

“You’re not going to win at a plate track just by having a fast car. At some point, you have to make a bold move, which I think is good. What makes those bold moves successful is your ability to really have great spatial awareness and to understand the pieces that are all going on.

“Those things happen from studying the race and from experience.”

Penske power

Even though Keselowski and Logano have three wins between them already this season and none on restrictor-plate tracks, Keselowski still believes their confidence level is higher on the plate tracks right now.

Keselowski has won at Atlanta and Martinsville, Va., while Logano won last weekend at Richmond, Va.

“We have good speed, good techniques. I feel like we can go to Talladega and win and I think we’ll be one of the cars to beat,” he said. “The only confidence that you don’t have is you know there will be things that you can’t control.

“I think there’s a bit of an ebb and flow to it. At this point in time, we have a series of moves that are pretty strong, that have put us in a position to win a lot of plate races at Team Penske. A little bit is the car, but a lot of things are what Joey and I have learned and worked on together.”

Regardless of the success, Keselowski also knows that at some point Team Penske will lose whatever advantages it has on the plate tracks and will have to start over from scratch.

“I think you have a year or two where it’s like nothing’s clicking, and you get frustrated. Then you find a new move, find a new technique, and things start to click, and you feel like you’re in charge and dominant,” he said.

“And then everybody eventually catches up to those moves, or those moves are made irrelevant by rules changes and so forth, and you have to find a new one. There will be something different, and that’s OK.

“Hopefully, it was last a long time, but history shows it won’t. I look at probably the last three years on the plate tracks, and I feel like Joey and I have been the most successful, and we hope to be able to continue that.”