Kevin Harvick leads the field into Turn 1 during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race at Kentucky Speedway, Saturday, July 9, 2016 in Sparta, Ky.
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Brad Keselowski has 21 career NASCAR Cup Series wins and three of those have been earned at Kentucky.
LATE FRIDAY: Kyle Busch led 185 laps and won the NASCAR Xfinity series Alsco 300.
When Keselowski slowed through Turn 4 on the next-to-last lap, Edwards thought he had the race won, but in retrospect, Edwards believed he had been beaten by a cunning opponent.
Busch slid across the finish line spoiler-first and was credited with 23rd place as the last auto on the lead lap.
Keselowski’s vehicle finally ran out of gas when he pulled up beneath the flag stand on the frontstretch to collect the checkered flag.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished 13h, didn’t seem to be a fan. But Keselowski followed up his skillful restrictor-plate performance last week at Daytona with an equally extraordinary effort in Kentucky this time using fuel strategy to stretch his final tank 71 laps to the checkered flag.
Brad Keselowski, fearing his No. 2 Penske Racing Ford was running on fumes, held off a runner-up Carl Edwards to win a fuel mileage race and make it to the finish of the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday night.
“We’ll go back and we’ll sort of reconvene with the drivers and the owners and the [manufacturers] and decide where we’re going”, NASCAR vice president of competition Scott Miller said. “Somehow we limped it around and stay ahead of Carl (Edwards) and bring it home”.
That’s on this is night and I’m gonna forget. You want to drive and hustle and try to get in there and beat guys. “But there’s nothing you can about it, and freaking out ain’t going to help anything”. But after assuming the top spot, Kenseth went to the pits for fuel, handing the lead back over to Keselowski. Keselowski’s tank eventually ran dry and he needed a tow to victory lane.
Stewart Haas racing teammates Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart’s plane fourth and fifth respectively. It’s not often you see six-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson wreck not once – as he did in practice – but again in the race, 32 laps in.
It’s Keselowski’s series-leading fourth win of the season and he’s now guaranteed a spot in the Chase (assuming he attempts every race) because he can’t drop out of the top 30 in points.
Edwards got close to Keselowski on the final lap, but Keselowski sped away. I don’t think we had the best vehicle; I think probably the 78 [Truex] was. Last year, we came here, I thought we were the best auto, didn’t catch a single break, didn’t execute, and those two things kept us out of victory lane.
On a night when even “Bad Brad” said he didn’t have the best vehicle, Keselowski nevertheless scored his third Quaker State 400 victory in the six-year history of the race.
The headache-inducing bumps have been smoothed down, while increased banking in turns 1 and 2 sets cars up for higher speeds entering turns 3 and 4 that remain at 14 degrees.
In the end, it’s hard to predict which driver and team is going to have a good race on any given afternoon or night.
Busch was roughly a half-second ahead of Suarez and appeared to have the race in hand when caution flew on Lap 195 with smoke billowing from Mike Harmon’s vehicle. And he said NASCAR and Goodyear would look into driver feedback about tires feeling too hard.
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It all added up to a race in which pretty much everyone said they had no idea what to expect.
