Brad Keselowski, the center of last Saturday’s post-race controversy at Charlotte Motor Speedway, said today that he hadn’t pondered over the incidents enough to determine if he regretted them.
“I am not really ready to get into that side of it,” Keselowski said to reporters at Talladega. “I haven’t put a lot of thought into it to be honest. I have been busy testing Martinsville and getting ready for this weekend.
“It is a huge weekend for me and our team where we have to really pull out a clutch moment and I don’t want to lose sight of that by spending a whole bunch of time on all that other garbage.
“I am not going to say I haven’t spent any time on it, but I didn’t spend enough to really have all my thoughts and feelings put together enough to share it with you guys.”
Keselowski helped ignite the post-race fireworks when he attempted to spin Denny Hamlin on the cool-down and then hit both Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart at the entrance of pit road.
He then had Stewart back into his car, was chased by Hamlin through a garage area, and got attacked from behind by Kenseth after walking in between haulers.
The brouhaha earned Keselowski a $50,000 fine and probation for the next four races (Stewart got a $25,000 fine and the same amount of probation).
“It is what it is,” Keselowski said about the punishment. “I didn’t have a big reaction. Maybe I should have had a bigger one, I don’t know. I thought [Sprint Cup Series managing director] Richard Buck was really classy and I thought that was really nice of him. It isn’t something that I didn’t understand.”
However, Keselowski tried to stay mum about today’s comments from Kenseth regarding last Saturday – which included an accusation that Keselowski was “greatly exaggerating” an incident between them during the final yellow of the race.
When first asked about his reaction to those comments, Keselowski’s response was: “Do I have to have one? I am just ready to go race here.”
However, he eventually added: “[Kenseth] is always entitled to his opinion as I am to mine. We are both entitled to our opinions. Obviously, we have a difference of them or what happened Saturday wouldn’t have happened.”
Needless to say, the Charlotte incident figures to be a distraction for Keselowski, who is behind the Eliminator Round cutoff by 19 points going into Sunday’s GEICO 500 elimination race.
But while Keselowski admitted that he’d be frustrated if he failed to advance on Sunday, he said he wouldn’t “go home and cry in [his] milk” if it came to that.
“That will be tough but it happens,” he said. “I am not preparing to fail but I am proud of what we have done this year…We have a lot to be proud of, led a lot of laps, won races and won poles. It is almost a career year.
“There is a lot to take away from it, but I am not giving up on it either. I am okay. I am in a good spot.”