AVONDALE, Ariz. — Brad Keselowski has faced must-win situations in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. He turned that pressure into results last year with a daring move on the way to victory at Talladega Superspeedway. He failed to repeat that feat a few weeks later at Phoenix International Raceway.
So he knows the pressure he faces Sunday at Phoenix. He characterized the pressure as not necessarily normal but not “out of bounds.”
That statement might make it seem as if Keselowski doesn’t feel the pressure, but sometimes actions speak louder than words.
Take for instance after Quicken Loans 500 qualifying Friday at the 1-mile oval. The usually affable Keselowski bolted from his pit stall after qualifying 18th, answering questions with a couple of sentences at most as reporters peppered him with questions while nearly stumbling over themselves to keep pace with him.
About 10 minutes later, Kyle Busch, not necessarily thrilled with starting 10th but without the pressure of a must-win scenario Sunday, stood by his hauler, answering questions and telling stories about Jeff Gordon.
You tell me. Who’s feeling the pressure? Who’s the one who led 312 of 334 laps at Texas only to lose in the final laps?
Call it pressure or the need to focus, but it’s hard to blame those who need a win for feeling as if they face an uphill battle. Kevin Harvick, third in the standings, has won four consecutive races at PIR and five of the past six.
The chances of anyone other than Harvick to have that walk-off, win-and-in moment to earn one of the four bids to start Homestead-Miami Speedway with 5,000 points and a chance to win the championship appear slim.
“Yes, that car has been the fastest one here the last few times, but a lot of times the fastest car doesn’t always win,” said Keselowski’s teammate Joey Logano, who faces a must-win situation as well.
Busch can recall a slew of solid runs at Phoenix, including a fifth-place finish earlier this year in his first race back from suspension. Keselowski and Logano have memories of several feel-good, solid races at the 1-mile oval.
None of that will rate as good enough Sunday.
“A top-5 isn’t going to be good enough,” Busch said. “Where a lot of people think we did good last week by finishing seventh [at Texas], and I was like ‘Thank you,’ but what did it do for us? Absolutely nothing.
“And so you have to go and win. That is what this format demands you do this time of year.”
If qualifying indicates anything, Busch has the best shot among any of the drivers to pull off the walk-off and advance to be among the “championship 4” drivers. He will start second, beside non-Chase driver Jimmie Johnson on the pole, and he is the only driver in a must-win situation who has won a Cup race at Phoenix.
That win, though, came more than 10 years ago in April 2005, and Busch hasn’t led laps at Phoenix in three years while posting best finishes of a pair of fifths. Keselowski has led in seven of the past eight Phoenix events but has finished no better than third. Logano has led in each of the past four Phoenix races but has finished no better than fourth.
Logano will start 14th, and Keselowski 18th. They can say they feel their cars will be better in race trim, but they will need to find speed.
“We look at it and say, ‘Hey, the last three times we didn’t have an issue in the race we won,'” said Logano, who won all three races in the Contender Round. But that was before being wrecked at Martinsville and then having a flat tire at Texas, which could bring a six-win season to a disappointing end. “That makes us feel pretty good. That makes us pretty confident about what we can do together, so, really, we don’t change what we do.
“We obviously know our situation, what we have to do, but we don’t change what we do every weekend because we know the recipe to go out there and win.”
For Logano, he has no chance to advance but to win. Keselowski (19 points from the current cutoff) and Busch (28 points back) could advance but would need a great finish and substantial help.
With Gordon the only Chase driver having won in this round, three championship spots remain up for grabs at Phoenix. A win earns an automatic bid with the remaining spots based on points. Carl Edwards is the first man outside the bubble, seven points behind fourth-place Martin Truex Jr., 10 points behind Harvick and 11 points behind Busch.
“We are approaching this race as a must-win race,” said Edwards, whose win at Phoenix in March 2013 while driving for Roush Fenway makes him the last driver not named Harvick to win at the track.
“That’s the only way to guarantee our spot. If one of the guys behind us leapfrogs us and wins, it’s going to be a tall order to advance, so we just have to give it all we’ve got.”
For a Joe Gibbs Racing driver such as Edwards to feel he must win at Phoenix, that doesn’t evoke feelings of optimism. JGR has won only one Phoenix race — Denny Hamlin in March 2012 — in the past 15 years. In the March race at Phoenix, Edwards finished the best among any of the JGR drivers in 13th. Edwards starts fourth Sunday while Busch — who doesn’t need the walk-off moment — starts 10th.
“We should be able to run that well, and we’re just going to race the race and race our own race right now until it gets down to about the last 100 laps and then we’ll start seeing what if we need to do to try to make up spots,” Busch said.
“Literally, I give it everything I’ve got every lap anyways. I don’t know that I’ll be able to make it up if we’re running 12th to get to that seventh mark.”
They all likely will chase Harvick, the driver everyone bases themselves against, at least early. They won’t rule out not pitting or two-tire stops in certain situations when everyone else pits to take four.
“Strategy comes into play here a lot,” Logano said. “A lot of people take two tires or four tires and a strategy call will definitely be played by multiple cars at some point — so having the race strategy, having good restarts, keeping yourself in the game here and going for that win at the end is going to be super important.”
Keselowski entered the weekend optimistic thanks to a solid test Oct. 12-14 at Phoenix. He said after qualifying that they never made any laps in qualifying trim so he won’t read into where he starts as an indication of whether he should remain optimistic.
He will have to shake off any demons still in his head from last week, trying to keep the sight of Johnson passing him with four laps left from haunting him over an opportunity lost.
“I dominated all but the last 5 percent of Texas,” Keselowski said. “So that shows the weekend is not over until it’s over.”
That’s a statement of fight but not necessarily a statement of confidence. But considering only six Phoenix winners have started worse than 18th in the track’s 37-race Sprint Cup history, Keselowski knows the odds aren’t in his favor.
For a driver such as Busch, he can approach Phoenix a little more philosophical. Entering this season, Busch had finished in the top five in 27.5 percent of Chase races. This year, he has four top-5s in eight races. If he doesn’t lead a lap, he still gets in with a third-place finish; if he does lead a lap, all he needs is a fourth.
“Right now for us our best scenario is to run hard and run strong and do what we know how to do and come out of here with a better than seventh-place finish,” Busch said. “I think that will get it done. We’ll see how that goes.”
For Keselowski, he knows the stakes:
“Win the race or go home,” Keselowski said. “I don’t know [our chances]. … We’ve been in this situation before. There is no normal [pressure], but I wouldn’t say it’s out of bounds.”
