NASCAR CUP SERIES: COKE ZERO SUGAR 400

August 29, 2026

Brad Keselowski

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by our race-winning owner, Brad Keselowski.

We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Obviously you've been up on the stage as a winner, winning owner with Chris. How does it feel with Ryan with everything that he has gone through, all of those different battles?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Yeah, I've got four kids, and it reminds me a lot of when they do something you're really proud of. Similar feeling.

Not that Ryan is a kid. He's definitely not a kid. There's a feeling of pride that you helped him get there and do those things.

His team there worked really hard. Ryan's worked really hard to put himself in position to have success. I feel like he won the Clash at the start of the year, but outside of that it hasn't been the season we really wanted for his car.

He's kept his drive, kept his fire. He's putting the work in. That persistence I think has come to fruition with just a terrific night for him.

It's such a clutch moment for Ryan, to come in and be however many points behind the Playoff, Chase thing here. To just drive a great race, go get him a win, with everything on the line, those are nights that you remember, and those are nights that are really special for him but really special for everyone on this team.

Q. How does it feel from that perspective of being an owner saying I did choose the right guys to branch out this team?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: It's certainly validating, for sure, when there's successful. We have our different competition meetings, I think I upset some people sometimes. I'll say, I don't want to hear anything about the drivers. I know these are the right drivers. They have a history, track record of success. If we're not winning, I don't want to hear about the drivers. I want to hear about the cars, what we're doing to make them faster, the strategy, the pit crew stuff. That's what I want to hear about.

That's how firmly I believe that we have what it takes with drivers that can make the right moves to win. So it's really validating for that, as well (smiling). I think we're just trying to stay focused, build the best cars we can build, build 'em fast, build 'em to stay together, to pass tech. All those things are what we have to do. We try to stay really focused on that because I believe so much in the drivers.

When Chris goes out and wins or when Ryan goes out and has success, it really helps the focus of the company.

Q. What was your view there on the last lap? I assume you couldn't exactly see who was leading at the time of caution. What did you think you saw?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: I didn't see anything, yeah. My spotter, T.J. Majors, relayed, Hey, I think the 60 was ahead. Then you have that lap of slowing down. You're waiting for someone to tell you something different, right?

RFK, we've had at least half a dozen of these races where we finished second by feet, sometimes inches. It's fallen apart that way. So it's nice that it didn't this time.

Q. You get the news. What is going through your head in the immediate moment?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Two cars in the Chase. It's a big deal for us. To put two cars in that position is a big mark for us. We want to be a Tier I team. Tier I teams put their cars in the Playoffs. There's no way around that.

We haven't had the season we want. We want to win more races. We want to do all those things. We want to continue to climb and get better. We're in this kind of, like, purgatory of the top of Tier II. We don't want to be there. We want to be Tier I.

Winning races, putting your cars in the Chase, that's what it takes to get there. We did that today. Ryan did that today.

Q. Entering your time with RFK, coming out of Team Penske, your résumé compared to Chris and Ryan, you were a champion, few dozen wins. It seems in the past two to three years really the whole team has excelled. It seems the 17 and the 60 seemed to excel ahead of the 6 team. Might not be everyone's first expectation. What would you attribute Buescher, the heights that each of the three RFK teams are reaching?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Yeah, it's interesting inversion that we had from the start of the year where I felt like the 6 was the best of the three teams at the start of the year. I think it was up to fifth or sixth in points. Knocking on the door with a win at Darlington. Then just completely fell flat through the months of May, June and July. Pushed itself to where it's now I think 18th or 19th in points, which is very frustrating. We're not where we want to be. We can't hide from that.

The 60 team has been just uber consistent. They've been the 15th to 18th the whole year in points now. I think they're just kind of steady Eddie. To some degree so is Chris. I think he's been somewhere around eighth or ninth in points the entire season.

We want our ceiling to be higher, but we also have to execute with what we have.

Q. At the end of stage one where Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece were both involved in that spin, what were your initial thoughts?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Well, I knew one of them hit the wall pretty hard based on the marks. I saw Ryan spinning through the grass. Honestly I thought it was him. So heck of a recovery from that point in the day, to get back in position. He just wouldn't be denied.

Q. This was a night of going into a bunch of unknowns. Unless something changes, maybe it will, this is what you'll be running at Talladega. What do you start thinking about in terms of looking ahead to this type of racing at Talladega and another opportunity for your guys to win?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Honestly, I could not tell a difference. I couldn't tell they changed the rules at all. My car drove almost identical to what it did. I was really shocked by that. I thought it would drive poorly, particularly here in the summer - I still call this a summer race.

I was a bit caught off guard by that. I don't expect it to look much differently at Talladega.

Q. You often are known to be able to be aggressive pushing. Were you able to do that tonight?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: The car was pretty forgiving. Maybe a little bit harder to build a run to push. It was not dramatic. The handling, I think we all thought handling would be a bigger factor than it was, it didn't really come into play.

Q. I saw Jack at the drivers meeting. Did you have a chance to talk to him before you came in here? What did this mean to him?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: I did talk to Jack before the start of the race. I did not see him after the race. That wasn't possible for him.

I wish he could have been here in Victory Lane. Glad he was here for the start of the race.

THE MODERATOR: Brad, thanks for your time. Congratulations.

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Thank you. Appreciate you guys.