By most accounts Brad Keselowski could be considered a long shot to be the driver who ends Jimmie Johnson’s streak at five straight Sprint Cup Championships.
Considering that he made the Chase as the first Wild Card and he ended up eleventh in the regular season standings. Only that would ignore a number of factors. Consider that in your last seven races, he recorded two wins, four top-fives and seven top-12 finishes. And those two wins were earned while recovering from a broken ankle at a test.
He says that the summer races are merely a launching pad to getting a championship. “The last 10 weeks of having to fight hard just to make the Chase. I know some people think you might get drained while trying to do that but we would disagree. I think it’s been a good starting point or warming up point for the Chase and I’m super-excited about it. I think we’ve handled it very well and if we can just recreate the last 10 weeks that we’ve had we’ll be in the top two or three. I know that sounds really easy but that’s my mindset going into it,” he said on a teleconference. Then there is the “no worries,” factor. It’s no surprise that, in his first Chase, Keselowski is keeping the stress low down. “I don’t mind, like I say, going into this somewhat quiet but I haven’t done a good job of keeping quiet about it, but I don’t mind going into it with somewhat of a quiet demeanor with low expectations because, you know, it just takes the pressure off my whole team,” he said. “I enjoy not having the pressure and I think it’s good for my whole team. It makes it a lot easier for everybody,” he added. Most of all there is the conventional wisdom factor, or statistics, whatever you want to call it. Conventional wisdom says that no Sprint Cup Champion has come from the bottom half of the Chasers. But Keselowski, in only his second full Cup season isn’t buying that. “I feel like we have a realistic shot. I know there’s never been a team that’s been in the back half of the points that’s really been a contender for it but we’ve been able to break conventional wisdom earlier this year and I see no reason why we can’t do the same this time around.”
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