Bad Brad wins the Indy 250 at Indianapolis

[media-credit name=”Credit: Tyler Barrick/Getty Images for NASCAR” align=”alignright” width=”227″][/media-credit]In a wild race, Brad Keselowski won the inaugural NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) Indy 250 with his Penske teammate Sam Hornish Jr. finishing second.  This was Roger Penske’s first win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in NASCAR and Keselowski’s first win at the speedway.  This win also gave Penske its 100th victory in NASCAR.

Ty Dillon, making his second NNS start, finished third (his career best finish), Denny Hamlin finished fourth and Austin Dillon finished fifth.

Polesitter Kasey Kahne led them to the green flag when Kyle Busch took off as they went into turn one.  Kahne told his team on the radio that the No.54 should get a penalty because he jumped the start.  NASCAR said that the No.38 Great Clips car did not start and that the No.54 would not get a penalty.

Busch lead the first 15 laps en route to the competition caution. All of the leaders came down for pit stops. Denny Hamlin came in for 2 tires and a wedge adjustment. Dillon came into the pits fifth and got two tires as well. The No.54 car came in the leader and got two tires but they held Busch for just two seconds for fuel and lost three spots. Keselowski won the race off pit road.

Green flag pit stops started to occur on lap 36 with the Discount Tire Dodge of Keselowski . Keselowski took four tires and a track bar adjustment because he was a little free off the corner.  The No.54 and the No.18 both took four tires.

While that was happening, Danica Patrick and Reed Sorenson got together when Patrick went into turn-1 and bumped into the No.98 of Sorenson.  Sorenson tried to save it but came back up the track and caught Patrick, sending them both to the outside wall.  Patrick was not happy and showed her anger thru her in car camera.  Patrick said she just got shuffled back and she doesn’t know if she tapped him.

“It’s just unfortunate for our day. It’s a big race, a big weekend.” Patrick said.

The rest of the leaders came into pit during the caution. The No.12 of Sam Hornish took four tires and won the race off pit road. Kasey Kahne lost two positions due to putting tape on the car.

The third caution came out with 37 laps to go for Debris. All of the leaders came in to pit maybe for the last time. the No.12 and the No.43 took two tires and came out first and second. The No.54 came in and was told to save fuel because they are four laps short. The No.22 car took 4 four tires and got tape for the grill.

They restarted with 34 laps to go with Hornish Jr. leading. Keselowski took the lead from his teammate with 29 to go and also having to save fuel.

The fourth caution came out when Brian Scott was battling Kahne and Scott spun and saved it but got little damage from Dillon. There was some takers for pit road to top off for fuel but none of the front runners came in.

They got back to green with Keselowski leading. Busch spun coming off turn-1 and made a great save to keep it off the wall. Busch will have to come to pit road so the fuel mileage situation (for him) is gone. Busch finished 22nd.

With 15 laps to go, Elliott Sadler was the race leader and got black flagged. Keselowski  was the leader on the restart and spun his tires (just like Kasey at the start). Sadler was asking NASCAR to review it and they did, but they still made Sadler come down pit road on lap 89.

“It’s so wrong to penalize me for a mistake they made.” Sadler radioed to his crew. “NASCAR just took the championship away from me. They just took the damn championship right out of our hands.”

Sadler finished battled back to finish 15th after the penalty and remains the series points leader by two points over Dillon.

Sixth place finisher Michael Annett captured the Nationwide’s $100,000 Dash 4 cash.  “This is awesome. This is the Brickyard. We aren’t kissing any bricks today but we have a big cardboard check that we can lay our lips on.”