Dodge’s Brad Keselowski Receives Driver of the Year Award

September 24, 2011

Left to right Ed Hinton (ESPN.com), Lewis Franck (Reuters), Keselowski, Mike Harris (Racintoday.com), Mike Vega (BostonGlobe).

Brad Keselowski’s winning ways, overcoming a broken ankle and other injuries, helped him win the voting as the third quarter DRIVER OF THE YEAR 2011.

Keselowski_DY3Q — Left to right Ed Hinton (ESPN.com), Lewis Franck (Reuters), Keselowski, Mike Harris (Racintoday.com), Mike Vega (BostonGlobe).

In the last seven NASCAR Sprint Cup races, in the quarter ending at Richmond International Raceway, he recorded two wins, four top-fives and seven top-12 finishes. And those two wins were earned within days of recovering from a broken ankle at a test session.

Adding those victories to a previous one and an 11th place overall finish in NASCAR’s regular season Keselowski earned a wild card spot for his first Chase for the Sprint Cup.

In the voting Keselowski took ten first-place ballots and totaled 117 points according to the DRIVER OF THE YEAR points system. Will Power, a Penske Racing teammate in the IndyCar series, had five first place votes and garnered 108 points. This was the first time that the same team owner (Roger Penske) had two drivers from different series finishing one-two.

A total of 18 drivers scored points in the third quarter voting.

In its’ 45th year, the DRIVER OF THE YEAR title is unique. A panel of 21 leading journalists from across the U.S. determines the winner. In quarterly voting, points are awarded on a declining 9, 6, 4,3,2,1 basis.

Keselowski was presented his trophy and a Tissot wristwatch yesterday (Friday) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

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