LONG POND, Pa. – With two victories in his pocket, Brad Keselowski could float through the rest of the Sprint Cup regular season without much spark.
That won’t happen, of course. He wants to win races as much as the next driver on the grid, but the fact that he’s locked into the Chase for the Sprint Cup opens up numerous opportunities for experimentation without the pressures that accompany a winning-at-all-costs mentality.
Among the odd situations created by Keselowski’s double-win stature is that he has two races at Pocono Raceway – Sunday’s Axalta 400 and another 400-miler July 31 – that basically can serve as test platforms for the Chase if Team Penske chooses to approach them as such.
“I think there is no other sport where you can be locked into the playoff less than a third of the way into the season,” Keselowski said Friday. “It is a really interesting dynamic to the current format and creates this period of anticipation with acknowledgement that you just have to keep racing.
“Don’t get me wrong, there are still opportunities to win, and we will take advantage of that but I am ready to go run for the championship right now. I am hungry for it.”
Recent races at Pocono generally have fallen into one of two categories – fuel-mileage events or tight finishes with late caution flags.
“This race always kind of unfolds being either strategy or a race where the restarts dictate who wins,” Keselowski said. “Those things come to mind, and they are a little more of a crapshoot. It feels a little more like Talladega to me than it does a lot of our other race tracks.
“There are some things you control and a lot that you can’t. That said, our approach for the weekend is always shifting and adjusting based on how the rules package flows and how our own team developments flow, and Pocono always seems to line up where the first Pocono we are a lot less competitive than the second Pocono for whatever reason. We are hoping we can maybe break that run for us.”
Keselowski, who is sixth in points, is one of four drivers with multiple wins this season. Defending series champion Kyle Busch has three; and Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards have two apiece.
In 12 races at Pocono, Keselowski has one win, two seconds and five top-10s.
