Brad Keselowski vents after team penalized for body modifications

ByBOB POCKRASS
June 6, 2016, 6:06 PM

— -- LONG POND, Pa. -- Brad Keselowski was frustrated over having a penalty for unapproved body adjustments early in the Sprint Cup race Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

Keselowski rallied to finish third and he admitted he would need to talk to NASCAR to understand why the team was given a penalty, where they had to fix the car under caution, restart at the rear of the field and then drive down pit road at pit-road speed under green.

When told that the FS1 television broadcast indicated it was similar to a modification the team made earlier in the year when one of his pit crew members hip-checked the car, Keselowski had a critical response toward FS1 analyst Jeff Gordon, the recently retired four-time Sprint Cup champion and still current equity owner in Hendrick Motorsports.

"That's because Jeff Gordon is in the booth," Keselowski said. "They need to get some people that aren't inbred to the sport and own teams and have internal knowledge, because that is pretty crappy. It is what it is."

Obviously Keselowski and Gordon have a history, including the fight at Texas Motor Speedway in 2014.

"It's not that I don't like Jeff Gordon in the booth, it's just that you need to have people in the booth that don't own teams or have commercial interests to the sport, because they say things that are very biased," Keselowski said

During the telecast, Gordon indicated that Keselowski was penalized for the hip-check to the car at Las Vegas and he came back to win. Keselowski actually was penalized for speeding, although the scuttle after the race about the dents in cars resulted in NASCAR taking a closer look at crew members denting the cars during pit stops.

"Do you guys remember the last time that this happened and the results? I think it was Las Vegas," Gordon said on the telecast Monday as footage of a Keselowski pit stop was shown on the screen. "Same penalty. Here it comes ... hip check. Bam."