Brad Keselowski must have found the golden horseshoe and be sharing it in the Penske garage. Kurt Busch jumped into Brad’s Nationwide ride Saturday and pulled off a Nationwide win at the Glen, holding off a bevy of talented road racers in the process.
Brad was excited to see Kurt do well in his usual Nationwide ride.

“This is great. This deal with Kurt didn’t come together until Tuesday. We left our driver debrief and talked about the Cup weekend at Pocono, I walked up to Kurt and said, ‘Hey Kurt, I think it would be cool if you drove my car this weekend. I just don’t think that I can pull it off.’ He was like a kid in a candy store,” Keselowski said. “His face lit up and I knew that he wanted to drive this car. I knew how bad he wanted to win and I’m glad to see his hard work and passion for the team pay off with a victory.”

Brad also pointed out that this month has brought a steady stream of championship-caliber talent to the driver’s seat of the #22 Nationwide car.
“We’ve had four championship drivers in that car over a four week span with Sam Hornish Jr., Jacques Villeneuve, Kurt, and myself. It’s going to be really cool to watch Jacques next week in Montreal.”

Roush duo enjoys Grand-Am debut
David Ragan and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished 12th at the Glen in their rand-Am debut, driving the No. 11 TRN Racing/Blackforest Ford Mustang in the GT Class.

“I’ve had a great time. This is probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a road course, so thanks to Jack, Ford Racing and UPS for allowing me to do this,” Ragan said. “It was great to get seat time and another couple hours of running that I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten to go along with our best qualifying effort up here. It definitely helps a little bit. I know the cars are completely different, but just getting the mindset of turning left and turning right and getting my reactions better, it was a lot of fun.”

Stenhouse said he was pretty happy with the result of their efforts.
“I don’t know what was expected, but I feel like we did alright. David ran some really good laps, consistent laps. He was more consistent than I was and ran really strong, so when I got in it took me awhile to get going after running our Nationwide car today. Once we got going, I felt like I could run some consistent laps.”

Jimmie and Kurt banter continues
After last week’s race, Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson were not so friendly, and apparently that hasn’t changed.

“Bottom line, he just started running his mouth. If you look at over the years and what his mouth has done for him, it got my biggest fan Jimmie Spencer to punch him in the face. It’s led to issues with NASCAR officials on pit road,” Johnson said. “I think we all tune in weekly and wonder what’s he going to say to his crew guys. You look at what he said to Roger Penske, his car owner. So, that aspect is the part that really got me mad. At the end of the day, I’m not going to let him run his mouth at me. That is just kind of how it is.”

Kurt played it cool, saying he’s glad Jimmie is thinking about him.
“It’s great. It means that I’m in his head and if I’m in his head, he’s got to worry about us running through this Chase,” Busch said.

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