Kickin' It With Brad Keselowski

Brad Keselowski was able to salvage a 21st-place finish last week at Fontana despite wrecking for the second straight week. Todd Warshaw/Getty Images

Brad Keselowski is doing a biweekly diary for SI.com this season. In his latest edition, he takes us through his anger over Daytona's pothole seen 'round the world and talks about keeping his confidence up through two straight wrecks to start the season. He also talks Winter Olympics, gambling and the best place to hang out in Vegas as he prepares for the Shelby American 400 this Sunday.

Take us through your race at California. For spinning out in the middle, you still came through with a respectable finish in 21st.

Overall, it was just an average weekend for us. Nothing spectacular. We would have liked to run faster, but it wasn't in the cards. We've been working to try to figure out why that was, and I think we've got some ideas for it as a group. I think all the Penske cars were very similar performance-wise, and I made the mistake of racing the racetrack and didn't capitalize as well as Sam [Hornish] and Kurt [Busch] did to get their respective finishes. There's just room for improvement on my end, but I guess it's a decent finish. Not as good as we hoped, but hopefully we'll continue to get better every week.

Now when you have a spin during the race but the car's still strong enough to compete, how hard is it to put it out of your head mentally and just focus on working back up through?

For me, it wasn't very hard at all to push it out of my head. In the back of my mind, there was a thought that I was running 17th-18th when I spun, and I finished 21st. So I really didn't lose that much by spinning, and I certainly wasn't very intimidated by it, that's for sure.

How rough has it been mentally to start the year with two wrecks?

Wrecks are just a part of the sport. Certainly we didn't want to have two of them in the first two races.. In my mind, it was a matter of risk versus reward. And from a risk standpoint, I pushed my car extremely hard at California until I spun out, found the limit -- and I lost very little in the process of doing so. I lost two spots. It's not a real big deal, two spots, so in my mind, it didn't really affect me.

Now, Daytona did. Daytona really stung a lot. You get a flat tire seven laps in with a car I really felt like was capable of winning the race, that really shocked me [he finished 36th]. But there was nothing I could do about it.

You know, somebody's got to get a flat tire and somebody's gotta spin out because they're trying too hard. Those were our days, and it'll go in cycles -- the trick is to just get through the bad ones.

There's still talk about the pothole seen 'round the world, that stopped racing for 2 hours, 25 minutes at the Daytona 500. I know you'd already crashed out, but what was your take on the whole situation? Do you think it was handled appropriately?

I think it was handled appropriately once it happened. The problem is, it should have never happened.

From NASCAR's end, NASCAR doesn't build the tracks. They simply sanction the tracks. The problem was that it was allowed to happen to begin with, so hopefully the appropriate powers that be and other tracks in similar circumstances are taking note, and know how much of an issue that was.

You know ... there is no room for error in sports. There are so many choices this day and age that you need to be pretty buttoned-up. Americans just aren't going to put up with that.

So are you on the side that it should be repaved a couple of years down the road ... or that it should be done right now?

I am on the side that there should be about 300 people there the day after bike weeks in March, cutting the track up and repaving it immediately. There's no better way to put it. If it broke in one spot, why won't it break in another spot? And to say the racing is good because the pavement's worn out is a very weak argument.

First off, you should never ask a driver what he thinks about a track. What he thinks is what is most advantageous to himself. It's just how it goes ... we're all that way. So from that perspective, most of the drivers that do not want to see the track repaved are on the side or have the thought process of, "I don't want it to be repaved because I don't want it to turn into Talladega... because I'm scared of Talladega." And that's the bottom line.

You notice drivers don't say, "Well, you really have to drive Daytona and you don't have to drive Talladega." Like that's ever stopped us before. There's just a handful of drivers who are scared of Talladega. They don't want to see Daytona turn into Talladega, and in some sick way they'd rather see a worn out track that has problems and pisses the fans off than risk their own butts and run being scared.

Many fans have been critical of the competition at Fontana. How do you find racing on the track, and do you think it should keep both its dates for 2011?

Racing at California has a laundry list of items associated with it. It's very hard to get peoples' attention in California, and then you fight the perception of NASCAR being a Southern sport, which I don't think sits very well. But even with that being said, it's not like it was extremely popular with IndyCars or anything like that either when they ran there.

You also fight the location issue, that it's to the East side of a major metropolis city that's very hard to navigate, to get to. And then you fight the actual racing issue, of how racing is there. But to put the racing itself as being the number one problem, I think, is somewhat naïve. I certainly would put it on the list of issues with the track, but it doesn't seem like anything they do over there is able to make anyone happy.

I feel bad for [Track President] Gillian [Zucker], that's for sure. I think she tries really hard, but there's just so many different items. Specific to the actual racing itself, they've had moments where it was OK. I think the media could do a better job, specifically the television media, of covering the areas where there is racing. Instead, we seem to focus on certain individuals, and we miss a lot of the good action that there is.

I understand there is an overabundance of good racing at California, and there is. Always something to watch. I don't believe on giving up on race tracks, that's for sure. I've never been one to give up, so I don't think California needs to be given up on. I think it just needs to be continually addressed and worked on until we can get to where we want to be.

Right now, you're 28th in points two races in. How early will you start looking at that type of stuff, or has making the Chase become so important you're checking those types of things every week?

A little bit of both. I'd be lying to you to say I haven't looked at the points. At the same time, we fully expect to get better every week. The weeks where you're going to be the worst are the weeks where you're just starting off. So, I'm not going to say I don't look at it, but I'm also not going to say I put a lot of weight in it.