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Brad Keselowski saves enough fuel to win at Kentucky
Brad Keselowski won a week ago at Daytona through pure domination. Saturday night at Kentucky, he won thanks to a nifty strategy ploy.
The race’s final caution came on lap 194 of 267 as teams were on the precipice of making it to the race’s 400-mile distance on one more pit stop. As the entire field pitted, teams knew that they were running the risk of running out of gas before the end of the race if there weren’t any other caution flags.
[Related: Quick Takeaways from Kentucky]
There were no other cautions. And as the drivers around him all had to pit for fuel late in the race, Keselowski got all he could out of his gas tank to make it to the finish line just ahead of Carl Edwards.
Edwards closed from eight seconds back of Keselowski with four laps to go to right behind the Daytona winner’s bumper on the final lap, but Keselowski was able to hold him off through the final two corners.
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.
Keselowski had slowed dramatically over the race’s final five laps to make it to the end without pitting again. He and crew chief Paul Wolfe went for the no-pitting strategy after they saw Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr., their main competitors for the win, head to pit road.
“We went out and we set a really fast pace there on that restart and was just using fuel, and then it became obvious that you were gonna have to save fuel at the end, but I already used so much,” Keselowski said.
Keselowski and team were able to dictate strategy because he was out front after that final restart. He seized the lead and didn’t have to deal with Truex Jr. on the restart because the driver of the No. 78 was penalized on that round of caution pit stops for an illegal pass on pit road.
Instead of starting first, Truex had to start at the back of the pack. As the race went green and Truex absolutely blasted his way through the field to third before pitting, it looked like the penalty would put Truex in the best spot.
Since he was penalized and had to start at the rear of the field anyway, Truex’s team topped the tank off before the green flag waved with 70 laps to go. But he pulled to pit road with approximately 10 laps to go; a move that ultimately cost the team a shot at the win.
Kenseth, who stopped the latest of all the front-runners, finished 8th with Harvick and Truex Jr. rounding out the top 10. Ryan Newman was third while Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle and Jamie McMurray also finished ahead of the drivers that pitted.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
