No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Preview-Coke Zero 400
July 3, 2012
Brad Keselowski
No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger
Coke Zero 400
Daytona International Speedway
Saturday, July 7, 2012
TV: TNT at 6:30 PM ET Radio: MRN/Sirius Channel 90
No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger News and Notes
• This Week’s Charger… The No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger team will race chassis PRS-631 during Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway (DIS). This is a new chassis to the No. 2 fleet.
• No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger in 2012… After 17 points-paying events, Keselowski and the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger team are ranked 10th in the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) driver and owner point rankings. The team is coming off their third victory of the season in the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway last Saturday night.
• NASCAR Unites… This weekend, Keselowski will debut his first special paint scheme as the driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge. The specially-designed red, white and blue scheme is in support of NASCAR’s “NASCAR Unites – An American Salute” program, a platform uniting the NASCAR industry this summer to enhance the lives of U.S. military families. In addition to the new paint, the Miller Lite Dodge will also feature the new Punch Top Can innovation instead of the aluminum pint that has adorned the side of the car since the start of the 2011 season.
• Tweet Heard ‘Round The World… How can 140 characters make someone a social media sensation? Brad Keselowski found out how when his tweet from the backstretch of DIS, during a red-flag period in the Daytona 500, gained him over 100,000 Twitter followers within a couple of hours. His tweet, the first of its kind in professional sports, skyrocketed the driver to the top of NASCAR’s social media totem pole.
• Wins Keep Coming… Keselowski’s win last weekend at Kentucky was the 74th NSCS win for the organization. As a whole, Penske Racing currently has 98 NASCAR wins and 358 wins combined between the NASCAR and IZOD IndyCar programs.
• Enjoy A Punch Top Can… The featured tag line on the rear bumper of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge this weekend in Daytona will be “Enjoy A Punch Top Can.” With a successful legacy as innovators in the beer market, Miller Lite has debuted a new innovation in the Punch Top Can. The new can features a second tab to be opened for a smoother pour with less glug. To help launch this new campaign, Keselowski is featured in a national television advertisement for the Punch Top Can.
• Meet Brad… Keselowski will make a public appearance at the Ocean Walk entertainment complex located at 250 North Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach, Fla. on Thursday, July 5 beginning at 9 pm.
• The Rest is History... In 87 combined Cup Series starts at DIS, Penske Racing drivers have recorded one points-paying win, 20 top-five finishes and 29 top-10 results. The lone victory came in the 50th running of the Daytona 500 in 2008 as Penske Racing finished first and second with drivers Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch, respectively. The organization also scored victories in the 1998 and 2011 Shootout at Daytona, an all-star event.
Brad Keselowski talks about having three wins on the season
“The three wins are nice, and it means that we are pretty safe in regards to making the Chase, but we are focused on staying in the top 10 so that we can use the bonus points. That’s the way I look at the points right now. To me, we are leading the points because we are in the top 10 with the most wins. I want to be the guy with the most wins and inside the top 10 and I want to look forward to making sure that we stay inside the top 10. Hopefully we can climb up a few more spots to be safe. But wins and being in the top 10, that’s all that matters.”
Crew chief Paul Wolfe on the strategy for the remaining nine races before the Chase
“We’re going for wins. That’s our focus from now until the checkered flag at Richmond. The three-win ‘parachute’ is nice, but we don’t want to have to use it. It’s easy for us to sit here and dwell on the fact that we lost a lot of points at the start of the year, with our reliability issues, but that accomplishes nothing. We’ve fixed those issues and we still have fast race cars, cars that are capable of winning at any time. This, obviously, is the biggest wild-card race left before the Chase starts. We have a nice lead over the 99 car for 10th, but if we aren’t careful we could take a big hit there at Daytona because anything can happen.”