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Brad Keselowski says ‘poorly designed car’ makes it difficult ‘to put on a show’

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Brad Keselowski was very critical of the car design in NASCAR and implied it resulted in his early exit at Kentucky. Are his comments purely frustration or is there something to his opinions?

SPARTA, Ky. – Brad Keselowski slammed the Gen 6 car for its lack of handling on 1.5-mile tracks Saturday after spinning in Saturday’s Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway.

The Team Penske driver lost control of his No. 2 Ford on a Lap 88 restart, triggering a pileup that also collected Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer.

Keselowski initially took the blame for the wreck, but he expressed frustration with the car in a group interview after leaving the care center. He was asked about the 1.5-mile speedway’s efforts to widen its repaved surface by using its Tire Dragon.

“They made a good effort,” Keselowski said. “It was better than nothing, but there are limitations. The way this car is, it needs a lot more help than a Tire Dragon. It is a poorly designed race car and it makes racing on tracks like this very difficult to put on the show we want to put on for our fans. You do what you can to gouge and claw on the restarts and get everything you can get. You have to put yourself in bad situations to do that and that is where we were. If you don’t make those moves on the restarts, then you run in the back. Or you have a bad day.

“It is time for the sport to design a new car that is worthy of where this sport deserves to be and the show it deserves to put on for its fans.”

On the NASCAR on NBC podcast this week, senior vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O’Donnell said meetings were beginning about the Gen 7 car.

O’Donnell said removing the splitter, a scourge of many drivers who dislike its effect on aerodynamics, was a probability in the next model, which he said was two to four years away from hitting the track.

The Gen 6 car made its debut in 2013 and was aimed mostly at adding manufacturer identity.

Though Keselowski struggled with traffic on restarts, Kyle Larson showed it was possible to make passes. After starting from the rear and falling back on a speeding penalty, Larson had gained more than 50 positions over the first 150 laps of the race.

Kentucky also marked the fourth time in seven races that Keselowski had crashed out.

“I am probably as much frustrated with myself as I am frustrated with the situation and frustrated with the sport that we can’t design a better car than this that you can race without having to do everything on the restart,” he said. “That is all part of it I guess. It is where we are right now.”