Brad Keselowski 2014 Review
By Richard Tix
Season Grade: A-
BK had a rough and tough 2013 campaign that left him looking for more heading into 2014. He never could seem to get things going and missed the Chase just one race after he won the Sprint Cup title.
"Keselowski did however pull it together in the Chase to steal a Win from Chase contenders and maybe get his spirits up for 2014. So the big question in this Driver Spotlight is will BK regain his 2012 form and bounce back? I see no reason why BK can not bounce back and be a contender again. Even in a struggling 2013 season he still had glimpses of the Championship run which makes me believe he has it in him." -From 2014 Driver Spotlight Preview
Regain his form he did. BK started the season off finishing 3rd, 3rd and 1st while also grabbing his first of 5 poles. It became an early season trend for BK and Penske teammate Joey Logano to start up front or even on the front row. The two of them followed that up with 6 total poles (BK-5 and JoLo-1).
After BK's hot start he hit a stretch where he just plain struggled and it looked like 2012 again (except he was already locked into the Chase with his win). However, in 2014 he turned it back around at Dover and had finishes of 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st and 1st in his next 6.
Brad took that hot streak and won the final regular season race of the season at Richmond. The streak continued right into the Chase when he won the first Chase race at Chicagoland. Then came Charlotte.... I will not get into the full factors as much of us know what happened, but he left Charlotte with a small shot to advance and a lot of enemies going into Talladega, were its a wild card race.
Needing a win to have any shot at advancing, Brad charged to the front almost all day at Talladega and pulled off the exciting win to advance to the Eliminator Round (last eight). Things started out rocky when he finished 31st in the first race at Martinsville and things boiled over into the next race of the round, Texas. Knowing he needed a win and running third BK tried to take a "hole" between Gordon and Johnson in a late restart and it didn't work out. It left he and Jeff Gordon all but needing a win at Phoenix to advance to Miami.
As we know, neither driver advanced to Miami (where they would have lost to Harvick anyways). Even though he didn't advance to the final, 2014 has to be looked at as a huge success. BK got back on track and showed his style of racing to everyone. He may have picked up some new enemies along the way but he also picked up a Cup leading 6 wins in 2014 (His new career high). With that, BK also picked up a career high 17 top 5's and 20 top 10's (his second highest career mark). He was one of the fastest drivers on the Cup level all season but came up short finishing 5th in points. Next year it will be interesting to see if Penske can keep the speed up or if others will start to catch up.
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