It feels like it has been ages since Brad Keselowski won at Darlington Raceway, his first Cup Series win in three years. The victory gave the RFK Racing co-owner enough fuel to last him till the end of the regular season but his No. 6 Ford Mustang simply hasn’t had the speed needed in recent weeks. A result of that is the tough corner he faces going to Bristol this Sunday.
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A slow race at Atlanta and a bad outing in Watkins Glen have put him 12 points below the Round of 12 elimination line. The upcoming 500 laps in the 0.533-mile oval are collectively his only shot at moving further up the ladder. Fortunately, the years of experience and loads of skills that he has accumulated have rendered that he doesn’t have to look past his history for motivation.
In 2014, Keselowski sat 19 points below the Round of 8 elimination line heading to race in Talladega. A blown tire in Kansas and a poor race in Charlotte meant that he only had the superspeedway race to make amends and secure a spot in the third round. He put up an extraordinary performance that day and won the challenge at the cost of drivers like Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Can he repeat the feat once again in Bristol? The short oval has seen a lot of good days from Keselowski. He has six top-10 finishes and one victory in the last 10 races there. Also, he has won a total of three races over 27 appearances. If any, now would be a good time for him to crank up the gears again and champion his team towards the finale in Phoenix.
The competition that Keselowski faces from Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr.
Keselowski’s desire to win in Bristol is fueled by the purpose of being successful as a driver/co-owner. Self-admittedly, that has been his only goal for a long time now, and placing RFK Racing in the Round of 12 would count so much towards that. But his fellow veteran drivers Hamlin and Truex Jr. also have similar purposes.
Hamlin is six points below the elimination line and running in potentially one of his final full-time seasons in the Cup Series. Ending his career without a title is the most painful thing he could endure after spending two decades in the sport. This automatically makes Bristol an extremely high-stakes race.
Truex Jr., on the other hand, has already announced his retirement. The upcoming event will be his final Bristol Night Race as a full-time driver. Sitting 14 points below the elimination line, he must perform to keep his hopes of retiring as a champion alive. The bottom line is that all three drivers have a lot of dreams to race for. Saturday night will decide whose lives.
