The two drivers at the center of one of the most heated scuffles in the Sprint Cu this season appeared ready to move on but in no way thinking about making up Friday at Talladega Superspeedway.
Keselowski was fined $50,000 for ramming Kenseth on pit road and then for the way he drove through the garage afterward in a tussle with Denny Hamlin. NASCAR didn’t fine Kenseth nor Hamlin.
Does Keselowski, who needs to win or have a good finish and have help Sunday at Talladega to advance to the next round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, have any regrets?
“I’m not really ready to get into that side of it,” Keselowski said Friday prior to practice at Talladega. “I haven’t put a lot of thought into it to be honest. I’ve been busy testing Martinsville and getting ready for Talladega.
“This is a huge weekend for me and our team where we really have to pull out a clutch moment. I don’t want to lose sight of that by spending a whole bunch of time on all that other garbage.”
Kenseth also didn’t make many apologies.
“I don’t regret my actions,” Kenseth said. “I’m not proud of them or happy about them or any of that, but I don’t regret them. I don’t know that I’d do anything different if the same thing would have went down again.”
Kenseth sounded like he wished he could have been more effective after the race, where he wasn’t penalized as NASCAR determined he didn’t get a closed-fisted punch in after he chased Keselowski down between haulers and put him in a headlock before being pulled apart.
“I’m definitely not built for fighting, and it’s not really in my genes, not something I ever really want to do,” Kenseth said. “But I guess everyone has their breaking point. … I didn’t go in there with fists flying or anything else like that.
“I just wanted to get to him, I guess. I’m not sure I knew what I wanted to do when I got there.”
Keselowski rammed into Kenseth as they entered pit road Saturday because he felt that Kenseth had hit him while taking the free pass with six laps remaining. Damage from that contact is what Keselowski believes led to him dropping from fifth to 16th in the final two green-flag laps.
Kenseth said he did swerve at Keselowski because he was angry with the way Keselowski ran him into the wall on a restart with 63 laps remaining.
“Brad is greatly exaggerating that point,” Kenseth said. “If you watch the video, you see he had no marks on the right front of his car after that.
“He said it tore his whole right front off. I did indeed swerve at him when I took the (free pass) because I was mad he put me in the wall, and it totally ruined my day. But if you look at his car, there’s absolutely no damage on it.”
Keselowski’s response: “We’re both entitled to our opinions. Obviously we have a difference of them or what happened Saturday wouldn’t have happened.”
Both drivers are currently on the outside looking in — Kenseth ninth in points, Keselowski 10th — of the cutoff to advance to the next round of the Chase. Only eight drivers advance after the race Sunday. Keselowski had entered Charlotte already in a hole after a flat tire a week earlier at Kansas.
“You definitely say you race more aggressively when you have as much on the line as you do now,” Keselowski said. “There’s no doubt about that. You’re a lot less worried about friends and enemies. You’ve got to focus on that night, and that night is all that matters.”
The 2012 Cup champion, Keselowski is tied with teammate Joey Logano for the most wins — with five — this season. And yet it sounded in the last week as if some drivers don’t have much respect for the Team Penske wheelman.
“Respect level is always important within the garage but you always have to temper that with the knowledge that when you’re successful, you’re a target,” Keselowski said. “That’s not just me. That’s everyone.
“That’s just part of the ebbs and flows that we talk about all the time.”
Kenseth was taking off his belts when he was rammed by Keselowski entering pit road. He said he has done that for years. Getting hit there and getting hit during the race had pushed him over the edge — especially considering he felt Keselowski did similar things in wrecking him in past races this year and then running into him after the race, as he did at Richmond in April.
“Brad clearly saw me roll outside of him (Saturday night), and he hung a right on purpose and ran right me in the wall and ruined my night and possibly took us out of Chase contention,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said. “So I was mad enough about that.
“To come down afterward and have your stuff off and net down and come pull those high school stunts playing car wars after the race was just absolutely unacceptable. So that definitely put me over the edge.”
Also fined from the ruckus Saturday night was Tony Stewart, who was collected by Keselowski when Keselowski ran into Kenseth and then backed hard into Keselowski in retaliation. Keselowski said it was “unfortunate” that Stewart got involved and some of the focus in addition to the $25,000 fine.
As far as his penalty, Keselowski didn’t seem too upset about his fine nor Kenseth not getting fined.
“It is what it is,” Keselowski said. “I didn’t have a big reaction. Maybe I should have had a bigger reaction. … It wasn’t something I didn’t understand.”
If there was any sign that both drivers aren’t dwelling on Saturday, they both had laughs with media Friday. Kenseth joked about Jamie McMurray running five minutes long in the media center into Kenseth’s allotted time.
Keselowski didn’t have any designated media time Friday but saw a group of reporters waiting for him as he walked through the garage about 30 minutes before practice.
“Am I being stalked?” Keselowski said with a laugh. “I’m a little flattered.”
