Keselowski wins pole at home track in Michigan
Michigan native is winless in 16 races at Michigan speedway
BROOKLYN, Mich. — For Brad Keselowski, any victory at his home state’s track is special.
Even if it’s only in qualifying.
Keselowski won the pole Friday for this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race, putting himself in good position to try for an elusive victory at Michigan International Speedway. Keselowski is winless in 16 career Cup races at Michigan. He does have eight top-10 finishes.
“I’m not really known as a great qualifier, so maybe over time I’ve probably put a little less stock in qualifying,” Keselowski said. “But I can tell you that when I saw that we were going to win the pole those last few seconds of qualifying, it put chills down my body. It’s a great feeling. It’s a special track for me to have any kind of success at.”
Keselowski’s pole was his 14th on the Cup Series and first at Michigan. It was his second this year.
Joey Logano was second, giving Team Penske a 1-2 showing in qualifying for Sunday’s race. Kevin Harvick — another Ford driver — was third.
Keselowski took the pole with a lap of 35.451 seconds (203.097 mph) in his No. 2 Ford. Logano was close behind at 35.457.
“Missed it by seven thousandths,” Logano said. “So close. But we’ve got to be proud of the effort that we put in as a team.”
Keselowski, who is from Rochester Hills, won at Michigan on the Nationwide Series but has never done so at the Cup level.
“Any success you have at your home track is right there with having success in the biggest races of the year,” Keselowski said.
Other noteworthy developments at MIS:
Earnhardt and Harvick — Harvick talked a bit more about his comments from earlier in the week about Dale Earnhardt Jr. Harvick suggested on SiriusXM that NASCAR’s growth has fallen short of its potential because Earnhardt — the most popular driver — hasn’t been successful enough. Earnhardt described some of the comments as “hurtful” on Thursday.
“It wasn’t anything personal. He had his opinion the week before on driver salaries and driver ages and those things, and I don’t know that anybody in the garage agreed with those either,” Harvick said. “There’s definitely opinions on a lot of things. There’s nothing personal, and I didn’t take anything that he said the week before personally either.”
Earnhardt said last weekend at Watkins Glen that there’s been “a major shift in how much drivers are getting paid.” He said newcomers are making a fifth to a 10th of what veterans had been getting.
Earnhardt said Friday he’d like to have a conversation with Harvick.
“I would certainly like to clear it up, but just probably between ourselves,” Earnhardt said.
Kahne’s outlook — Kasey Kahne, who is being replaced next year by Hendrick Motorsports in the No. 5 Chevrolet, said the vibe was good within the team Friday.
“It was the first time I had seen my guys since the news,” he said.
Kahne said he still wants to be in the Cup Series.
“I really think that I can come up with something good and come up with something that will be fun to be a part of and also try to work hard to make that team better than it’s ever been and myself better than I’ve been,” Kahne said. Get nasty, son. Get belligerent in the trenches, where nice guys get buckled, and don’t stop until you ransack the backfield.
That was the general mandate issued to Eddie Vanderdoes by Placer High School football coaches in 2010. He was 15 then, more broad grins, piecing blue eyes and unrefined body mass than the terror he would become.
“Coach Dennis Murphy was the guy,” said Vanderdoes, the Raiders’ rookie defensive tackle, after Wednesday’s practice in Napa, his eyes widening. “He preached being violent and mean and ruthless. He made sure I knew that.”
Message received, delivered.
Vanderdoes played angry his three varsity seasons without losing an ounce of his silly side. He could turn it on and off. Vanderdoes would blow up a play and then shimmy and shake to celebrate on the sideline at Placer, a social epicenter in Auburn on Friday nights.
The more Vanderdoes grew, the better he became, and he emerged as the most heavily recruited athlete in the history of the school, which opened in 1897. Every storied college powerhouse in the country called, the thinking that once this kid really figures it out, look out.
“That’s the one thing I noticed the most about Eddie — his confidence,” said Placer head coach Joey Montoya. “Once he grew there, it was, ‘Wow. He can dominate. He can be really special. He can be great.’
“I’d never coached a fivestar recruit before. You go watch a college game live, or an NFL game live, and you can see it — the speed, size, dominance. But until you have one of those guys, you really don’t absorbed, know what it’s like. Eddie was a physical specimen who could do things I’d never seen, and he’s still doing a lot of that.”
Vanderdoes had a mixed run at UCLA: great moments and frustrating ones, stalled at times by leg injuries. In the months leading to his first NFL training camp, Vanderdoes trimmed 35 pounds, down to 305, and he casts quite an imposing figure at 6-foot-3. He has bear-sized hands, barrel-shaped thighs and a broad base, a nicer way of saying he has one wide fanny.
Vanderdoes laughs. He knows he looks the part of stopper and bouncer. He has produced moments of brilliance in camp, unleashing on centers and guards in drills, knocking some on their backside. He has sacked Derek Carr several times, and he has punished one-man blocking sleds, delivering a distinct crunching sound that was common at UCLA, where defensive line coach Angus McClure recalled, “When he hits a sled, he hits it so hard, there’s a different sound, a different octave.”
Vanderdoes, a mainstay on the first-team defense in camp, has the attention of Carr. They fist-bump when leaving the Napa practice field, mutual respect between the team leader and rookie. And the Raiders need some defensive clout. They were last in the NFL last season with 25 sacks.
“Very explosive, great hands,” Carr said of Vanderdoes. “He reminds me a lot of the way (Justin) Tuck can get skinny and shoot a gap. If he gets beat the first time, he’s going to counter again. If he gets beat, then he’s going to counter again. His mind never stops. His motor never stops.”
Added Raiders defensive lineman Mario Edwards Jr., “He’s a hell of a player. He’s really strong. He is going to make some noise this year.”
Vanderdoes said landing in the NFL still hasn’t hit him. It may not until he hits someone wearing another uniform. The Raiders open the preseason Saturday at Arizona.
“I’ve enjoyed it so far,” Vanderdoes said of camp. “It’s new. It’s fun. I don’t have to worry about school. Don’t have to worry about two-a-day practices. It’s a profession now. It’s a lot better,” he added with a laugh.
Vanderdoes said a highlight of camp was a visit from his grandfather, Bernhard Peat, a Placer County resident and perhaps the greatest athlete Placer produced before his grandson rolled through.
Peat was a three-sport Sacamento Bee All-Metro star in the early 1970s — football, basketball, track and field. He still holds the Placer record in the long jump at 22 feet, 5 1/2 inches. Peat played football and basketball at Cal and logged 17 seasons of professional