TALLADEGA, Ala. — Coming off a tumultuous week and backed into a must-win situation, Brad Keselowski pulled off one of his biggest victories.
Keselowski drove a perfect final two laps in overtime Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, where he had to win to advance into the third round of NASCAR’s championship race. Anything but a victory would have ended his title chances, which took a huge hit last week with a poor finish at Charlotte and a post-race meltdown that earned him a $50,000 fine.
“I know there’s probably some people out there that aren’t really happy I won,” Keselowski said. “I can understand that. But I’m a man like anyone else and not real proud of last week. But I’m real proud of today.”
The 2012 champion sparred on the track at Charlotte with Denny Hamlin, intentionally hit Matt Kenseth on pit road and ran into the back of Tony Stewart. He was then accused of recklessly driving through a dark and crowded garage. Hamlin had to be restrained from going after him, and Kenseth jumped him from behind in a scrap that was quickly broken up.
His professionalism under attack throughout the garage and his season slipping away, Keselowski managed to come to Talladega focused on the difficult task at hand. He was in a three-way race to Victory Lane with six-time and defending champion Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., all three needing to win to stave off elimination.
It was Keselowski who grabbed the checkered flag.
“I’ll take the 50 grand and the win this week, wouldn’t you?” said Keselowski team owner Roger Penske, who strongly defended his controversial driver. “These guys are jealous of the job he’s done this year. He’s won six races. He’s made poles. He’s been up front. Nobody likes to see a guy win like that.
“I want him to get mad. I don’t want him to take it. We talked about it (last week). I said, ‘Brad, put it in the rearview mirror.'”
Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick, the winners of the first two races in the second round, also advanced to the third three-race round along with Ryan Newman, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Hamlin and Kenseth. The field will be cut to four after the ninth race. Points are reset after each round and the title will be decided by finishing order in the Nov. 16 finale at Homestead.
After the race, NASCAR said Newman’s car failed inspection because it was too low on both sides of the back of his Chevrolet. Penalties will likely be issued Tuesday, but that infraction is typically docked 15 points. Newman holds a 27-point lead over Kasey Kahne, who was eliminated Sunday.
The much-anticipated championship battle between Team Penske and Hendrick Motorsports took a major hit. Penske got both Keselowski and Logano into the third round, but Hendrick had three of its four drivers eliminated Sunday. Only Gordon advanced.
“Great teams, great drivers, great friends. I hate to see them not in there,” Gordon said about Johnson, Earnhardt and Kahne. “I really thought the chances of two of them getting in were very good, and certainly one of them. I thought two of us would be in there, and I thought there’s a decent chance three could be there.”
Hendrick and Penske drivers combined for 17 wins in the first 26 races, and have dueled all season as the top two organizations in NASCAR.
“We’ll just go and try and win some races before the year’s out,” Earnhardt said. “That all we’ve got left.”
But Talladega, one of only two tracks in NASCAR that requires horsepower-sapping restrictor plates and most of the field runs in one giant pack, is a crapshoot. One slip can trigger a massive accident, and a drivers’ fate often comes down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That’s what happened to Kyle Busch, who entered the race ranked second in the 12-driver field but was the fourth driver eliminated from the Chase because he was caught in an early accident. He was hit from behind, had to go to the garage for repairs and finished 40th on Sunday.
“We are destroyed. We are absolutely killed,” said Busch, who appeared to be hit by Austin Dillon. “I got wrecked from behind. We are done.”
The drivers in danger of elimination paced the early parts of the race. Keselowski had to drop to the back of the field at the start for an unapproved change to his Ford, but he picked his way through traffic and made it to the front of the field to lead.
Johnson and Earnhardt also charged to the front, and the three drivers who needed to win tried to set the early pace of the race.
Only Keselowski was where he needed to be at the end.
Johnson has to look ahead at chasing No. 7 in 2015.
“This year for sure there’s disappointment,” he said. “But the disappointment has been the weeks leading up to right now. We’ve dealt with that. You’re not going to win every championship battle you go into. You’d like. The numbers show you don’t win a lot of championships.”
Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Landon Cassill, and Newman completed the top five. Danica Patrick led 26 laps late in the race before fading to 19th.
