“And he drove right on past me and I was like, ‘Well, all righty then’. They’re always nasty races, you know”.
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Carl Edwards was able to close within a few feet of Brad Keselowski on the final lap of what turned out to be a fuel mileage race in Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway, but it still wasn’t enough to make a pass for the win.
“That was something”, Keselowski said. “It’s just the way it goes, I guess”.
Keselowski’s gas tank was so empty that he couldn’t perform a celebratory burnout; his auto had to be pushed to victory lane by a safety truck. “That’s what won us the race”.
In a crash-filled race featuring a record-tying number of cautions, the outcome ultimately came down to fuel mileage Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway. “He played it perfectly”. Those are great engines.
Matt Kenseth, who ran near the front most of the night and was in the lead when he pitted for fuel with six to go, said things went about as well as one could hope.
With seven laps remaining in the race, Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe elected not to pit for fuel but conserve what was left in the tank.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had that [happen]”, Keselowski said of his post-race escort by tow truck into Victory Lane.
“You’re definitely in a role to try and make people happy”, Kevin Harvick said Friday.
Keselowski earned his third career NASCAR Sprint Cup victory at the reconfigured and re-paved 1.5-mile oval in Sparta, Ky., where he captured his series-leading fourth victory of the season.
Harvick and Truex had cars capable of winning but circumstances derailed their bids. This is especially true since opportunities to score a lot of points in the place differential category are limited because the field was set by owner points, putting all the top drivers up front.
Keselowski was low, low, low on fuel and crossed the finish line on fumes. But NASCAR slapped him with a passing penalty as he speed up approaching his pit stall. He was 23rd on the restart. He was able to start ninth instead of going to the back at the green flag because his wreck came before the originally scheduled time for qualifying and before the starting grid was set. He was sent to the rear of the field but charged back as high as third before a late pit stop for fuel shuffled him back to an eventual top-10 finish.
“It wasn’t my night on that deal”, Truex said. That was cool, all in all we still finished 10th.
While Stewart said there was no one to blame, he also pointed out to how hard the tires were – but also that things will get better going forward. “I think the corner speeds would have been extremely high, and with the higher downforce stepping out of the groove might have even had more consequences than we had tonight”. “Which is something that they’ve needed and been asking for, so that’s what we’re striving toward”.
How much trouble were drivers having?
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Edwards finished second followed by Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart, who is making his final start at the 1.5-mile track. Other short odds to win are Jimmie Johnson, Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr., who each have 13/2 odds. “If you got into Turn 3 and 4 the least bit wrong, you wrecked”. Ten laps into the race, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. pancaked the right side of his No. 17 Ford against the outside wall of the Turn 3 torture chamber.
