Keselowski Guts Out Broken Ankle to Win the Good Sam RV Insurance 500

Brad Keselwoski gingerly climbed from his car as he celebrated his win at the Pocono Raceway late Sunday evening. Kesleowski held off a hard charging Kyle Busch for his second win of the 2011 season making him the first wild card in the chase. Keselowski had injured himself earlier in the week while testing at the road course in Atlanta. During the red flag Keselowski admitted to being sore but he toughed it out.

[media-credit name=”Kirk Schroll” align=”alignright” width=”218″][/media-credit]“It’s not me its good people,” Keselowski said in victory lane. “There’s so many people to thank.” But Keselowski also quickly said, “I’m no hero; the heroes are the guys that died in Afghanistan this week. I just drive race cars for a living.”

When asked about winning the possibility of winning a million dollars he said, “I would throw away the money (for the Sprint challenge) if I could get in the chase”, as Kurt Busch came in to congratulate him.

All the action occurred after a red flag delay that exceeded an hour and a half that saw Joey Logano leading the race.

“The 48 was coming,” Joey Logano said in the television booth during the red flag for rain at the Pocono Raceway. Logano had taken the lead from his team mate Denny Hamlin during a pit stop by taking 2 tires.

Sunday was a busy day at the Pocono Raceway as the Camping World Truck Series completed their race that was postponed due to weather on Saturday. Then the ARCA Series ran their delayed race before the Sprint Cup cars took to the track under the threat of rain.

Joey Logano led the field to the green after winning the pole award. Kasey Kahne started second but by the time the red flag was displayed on lap 124 Kahne was a lap down in 29^th place.

Up to the red flag it was Joe Gibbs Racing who dominated the race leading 110 of the 124 laps run, 65 of those by Logano’s team mate Denny Hamlin. During the red flag when asked if he wanted the race to be called Logano said, “What do you think?”

The June Pocono race winner, Jeff Gordon struggled early on from his starting position of 31^st hanging in the top 25 but his crew went to work and the car was getting better on each stop. By the time the red flag came out Gordon was in 6^th and he said, “I’m kind of hoping we go back racing because I think we can get our car good enough to win”

Jimmie Johnson was the only fly in the ointment for the Joe Gibbs trio chasing down and passing Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin as he was bearing down on Logano for the lead when the rains came. Johnson wanted to get back to racing as did Dale Earnhardt Jr. who was in 5^th.

When the race restarted the leaders all went to the pits and Jeff Burton only took two tires coming out first. Kurt and Kyle Busch led them to the green flag and took off. Earnhardt Jr. had slipped to 15^th but was working his way forward.

It went green flag and with 50 laps left pit stops started. Those went without issue and after Landon Cassill made his pit stop Kurt Busch remained in the lead as rain was close by but was forecasted to miss the track. Jimmie Johnson started having issues with his transmission shifter and had to keep it in high gear.

When Kyle Busch passed his brother Kurt with 38 laps to go for the lead Kurt  said, “Well, at least we won the Pocono 400.” At the same time Jeff Gordon was working on sixth place Joey Logano.

Things stayed green and they started another round of green flag stops with about 28 laps remaining.

Then with 21 laps to go Juan Pablo Montoya and the No. 4 of Kasey Kahne got together coming off turn 1 sending Montoya spinning and Kahne to the pits with damage. Kahen lost a lap and was angry with his crew yelling, “It’s like you guys have never been to a race before!” That erased a sizable lead by Kyle Busch over Brad Keselowski.

Under the caution many cars on the lead lap stopped for tires and fuel as the top 5 stayed out along with a few others who tried to gain track position.

On the restart Jimmie Johnson made a move for the lead going 3-4 wide into turn 1 and Keselowski ended up with the lead as Busch seemed to focus on Johnson who never made the pass. As the laps wound down Busch was tracking Keselowski down and closing in as Kurt Busch was in third and Jimmie Johnson was in fourth.

With 12 laps to go Joey Logano was losing a tire and almost crashed as he was in heavy traffic.

Coming to the checkered flag Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson had some high speed antics going on as they slammed doors. Johnson and Busch clearly disagreed as to what happened.

Kyle Busch said that if he to do it over again he would have done that restart the same way on the bottom even though he got bogged down with Johnson.