NASCAR: Brad Keselowski has gone from contender to desperation in a hurry

It’s not exactly hero to zero, but Brad Keselowski has to come up big to advance to the Round of 8 just weeks after surging into the playoffs.

It’s literally impossible to finish off a NASCAR regular season as hot as Brad Keselowski did last month. On Labor Day weekend, he won the Southern 500, clinching a spot in the NASCAR Playoffs. He had everyone wondering if he was a championship contender by winning at Indianapolis the next race, then took the playoff opener at Las Vegas just for good measure.

Articles were written as recently as Richmond wondering if Keselowski had turned the Big 3 into the Big 4. That was Sept. 22. It’s not even a month later, and all of a sudden, the 2 team is fighting for its playoff lives.

Incredibly, Keselowski is in serious danger of not advancing to the Round of 8. ESPN’s Bob Pockrass broke down all the unofficial clinching scenarios, and Brad K. can only guarantee he’ll move on with a win. He is 18 points behind Martin Truex Jr. and the cutoff spot, which is a lot to make up in the current NASCAR scoring system.

But it’s actually more grim than simple math because of who he’s chasing. Truex is the defending race winner, and in his time at Furniture Row Racing, he also has a fourth-place fall Kansas finish and has never finished worse than 15th. Keselowski really needs him to finish a lot worse than that.

He’s also likely to face pressure from behind in the form of Ryan Blaney, only four points behind. Blaney came in third last fall at Kansas and has another top-10 finish in his three previous starts in this race. So counting on the drivers around him to fail probably won’t work out that well.

Keselowski has won at Kansas Speedway, but that was seven years ago and in the spring race. His last five fall starts have led to just one top-10 and an average finish of 22.6.

If there’s a ray of light, it’s that the No. 2 team hadn’t won prior to its late season hot streak, and even though Keselowski would have made the playoffs on points anyway, it came up big when it mattered most. While other teams in need of a win to move on will have to raise their game to levels they haven’t really shown, Keselowski’s group just needs to rediscover its form from a few weeks ago.

Still, the fact that it’s even necessary shows how fast things can change in the NASCAR Playoffs. It’s not enough to be really good for one round, because the next one can end your season pretty darn fast, as Keselowski is on the precipice of finding out.