After Kenseth pitted, Keselowski then held an eight-second lead over Carl Edwards in a race to also save fuel. Competition and track officials took as many measures as possible to synthetically age the track, but the racing groove remained a narrow path for the duration of the 267-lap race, making passing a dicey proposition and contributing to 11 yellow flags, a figure that tied a track record.
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But this was not the same bumpy, abrasive Kentucky Speedway where Keselowski went to Victory Lane in 2012 and 2014. He has won two of the five races at Kentucky with an average finish of 3.8 at the track.
“It became obvious we were going to have to save gas at the end”, said Keselowski.
“He basically shut the auto off and went right off of 4 and matched it perfectly to where I couldn’t get by him down the front straightaway and then he ran like heck through (Turns) 1 and 2, and then I thought maybe he’ll run out down the back straight”, added the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
In winning the Quaker State 400 on the speedway’s recently repaved track, Keselowski managed to nurse his No. 2 Ford over the finish line on fumes, barely ahead of Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman.
Crew chief Paul Wolfe, who made the call for Keselowski to go into fuel-saving mode, said his driver radioed with two laps remaining that the vehicle was running out of fuel, and again with one to go that it was out. Keselowski’s tank eventually ran dry and he needed a tow to victory lane. Truex Jr. exited the pits with the lead with 70 laps to go.
The track felt different but the result was the same for Brad Keselowski at Kentucky Speedway.
“We are cleaning a lot of things up as we go from week to week”, he said, “and hopefully we are ready as we get into the Chase and have everything hitting on all cylinders”. That makes him the only driver to have finished on the lead lap in every race this year.
The pass-through penalty dropped the Furniture Row Racing Toyota to 22nd place, but Truex made a brilliant charge through the field all the way to third place before he pitted for fuel with 10 laps to go. But I don’t know how that works.
Tony Stewart, who needs to finish be in the top 30 in points to earn a Chase birth after missing several races early in the seasaon, finished fifth.
Keselowski won what seemed like a race of attrition against tire wear, loose cars and fuel mileage. He has been solid but not spectacular in practice, and since he starts second, he is going to need to score some points in the laps led and fastest laps run categories to justify his price tag.
“The 11 (Denny Hamlin) was pretty tight on my door, and I had the 42 (Larson) up my bumper, there, on that restart, and these cars a pretty hard to drive when you’re in that type of situation”, Scott said.
“Yeah, I thought he was out of fuel coming off of (Turn) 4”, Edwards said. 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.
LOGANO’S BAD DAY: Joey Logano almost wrecked on the first lap – and the race never got better after that. Meanwhile, I will try to separate myself from the pack with Buescher, who starts 34th but was a top 20 driver in practice with even better long-run numbers.
Harvick dominated the first 134 laps, leading 94 of them, and the first half featured an unusual amount of carnage.
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Truex clawed up to third, but then had to pit along with Harvick. Hamlin, Edwards and Kyle Busch will represent Joe Gibbs Racing.
