Brad Keselowski’s championship defense officially came to an early close on Saturday night in Richmond.
The 2012 champion will race the remaining 10 weeks but will not have a chance to win a second title. A 17th place finished in the Federated Auto Parts 400 along with a season of inconsistency kept him from making the Chase field. He fell to 16th in points and remains winless.
“I don’t really have any emotions right now. We weren’t good enough to make it and we didn’t. That’s the reality,” Keselowski said afterwards.
It wasn’t, however, without a lack of trying. The champion went down swinging. Keselowski and the No. 2 Miller Lite team did everything right through the first 300 laps of the race and were in control of their destiny, as they seemed to be getting a little help from the competitors they needed to have problems.
Coming in 15th in points and 28 from the top 10, Keselowski needed to throw a Hail Mary to make the Chase. All the 2 team could do was perform their best while hoping for the best.
Keselowski led a race high 142 laps and he fought for every position on the track, knowing every point mattered. His Ford became wide when he needed it to be, fighting off those charging behind him, even if they were faster. At one point going head-to-head with Kevin Harvick who Keselowski told his team he was going to use up when he got a fresh set of tires.
As the race took shape it became obvious that Keselowski was the class of the field. But when the complexion changed in a hurry during the last run of the race, Keselowski started to slide backwards. In order to make the Chase he needed to win and hope those he was battling in the wild card continued to run poorly. Instead, he slid right out of the top 10 and out of the race and Chase picture, for good.
“We were pretty good at the start and led a lot of laps,” he said. “I think we led the most laps but we just weren’t strong enough to really stay up there. We needed clean air to really run well and once we lost that we just weren’t strong enough.”
For the first time since 2006, Tony Stewart, does the defending champion fail to make the Chase field. Teammate Joey Logano now carries the banner for Penske Racing as Keselowski is left looking back at opportunities missed. And points taken away, inspections at Dover and Texas will haunt Keselowski fans, which played into the equation.
Keselowski lost 31 points in penalties this season. He missed the top 10 in points to Logano by 31 points. However, Logano had a race win.
The statistics, the number crunching and ‘what if’ scenarios – like should he have wrecked Kyle Busch for the win at Watkins Glen – no longer matter. The last few weeks as Keselowski saw his chances slipping away he vowed to fight until it was all over. He did exactly that on Saturday and almost seemed on his way to pulling off an incredible comeback until the car and circumstances again got away.
“That is just the way our cars have been this year. They haven’t been good enough and we haven’t executed as well as we needed to,” Keselowski said about the series of events.
“We have work to do. At the end of the day, the thing about points is it is the best measuring stick in sports. You know who deserves to be where because the results speak for themselves. We didn’t have enough results to get where we needed to be.”
