Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Miller Lite Ford, drives during qualifying for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 59th Annual DAYTONA 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 19, 2017 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Photo – Matt Sullivan/Getty Images
Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski went island hopping last Sunday.
If that sounds like a Caribbean vacation, or a way for the Team Penske teammates to relieve the accumulating stress from pressure-packed Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway, guess again.
Island hopping is the way Keselowski got to the front in Sunday’s rain-delayed Advance Auto Parts Clash at Daytona. It’s the way Logano ultimately won the race. And it’s the way the Ford drivers hope to win the biggest prize of all on Sunday in the Daytona 500 (2 p.m. ET on FOX).
Running in the outside lane, Keselowski, Logano and Kevin Harvick picked off the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota one by one in the closing laps of the Clash.
Keselowski, who’s a student of history, borrowed a concept from World War II to characterize the tactic.
“I love studying military history and World war II and how they island-hopped to Japan,” Keselowski said. “That’s what the Toyotas are forcing everyone to do. They have enough strength in numbers, they have six quality cars that they can create strength by having multiple cars. …
“So they only way you can beat them is to island-hop. You have to take one car at a time, destroy it (separate it from the rest via the side-draft) and go to the next one until you get to the main prize, which is, obviously, first. That takes a very specific set of tactics.”
Logano said the side-drafting technique was more difficult than it might have appeared to a casual observer.
“I wish it was easy,” Logano said. “It took us the whole race to figure out how to do it—we almost ran out of time. The side-draft is huge, like it’s always been. Brad is probably the best at doing that leapfrog or what he calls the ‘island hopping,’ whatever you want to call it, and we were able to pull them apart and get in a hole and pull another one apart and get in the hole.
“He’s really good at that, probably better than anybody at it, so he was the right guy at the right time. It was the perfect storm. I feel like my strength is being a very aggressive, strong pusher and able to use runs quick. He’s able to be very strategic on where he gets behind cars and being able to pull them apart, so as a team we’re able to use our strengths together and that’s what pulled everyone apart, along with Harvick behind us keeping us all together as best he could.”
Logano won the race when Denny Hamlin, who was leading at the white flag, was a faction of a second too late in his attempt to block Keselowski on the final lap, and the two cars collided in turn two. Logano missed the wreck and took the top spot.
The 2015 Daytona 500 winner would like nothing better than another trip through the “islands” on Sunday.