Keselowski wins the History 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway

[media-credit name=”Brad Keppel” align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]Brad Keselowski led the final 67 laps in route to his victory in Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) History 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Keselowski last pitted with 73 laps to go while most of the field did pit. Keselowski and his team were left guessing if they had enough to make it to the end. It was enough to finish and Keselowski got his first victory of 2012 and his eighteenth overall victory in the Nationwide series.

“Thankfully, we were able to save enough fuel. And I get what I think is one of the biggest wins of my career, to win on Memorial Day weekend and what it means to me and this country. It feels great.” Keselowski said.

The race was a tale of two halves. The first 100 laps were dominated by Kevin Harvick who led a race high 97 laps and were for the most part uneventful. The second half saw a number of crashes and lead changes, with Keslowski ultimately making his way to the point, after starting the race from the 10th starting position, and leading the final 67 laps in his Penske Racing Dodge.

“There’s a strategy and you know, Penske Racing engines, they do a great job with fuel mileage on the Dodges and they deserve a lot of credit for it. There’s only so much you can do as a driver and a lot of it comes down to the car and what it needs. Denny didn’t let me save any. I can tell you, at the end he was running pretty hard.” Keselowski said.

Denny Hamlin finished second.

“Just didn’t have that great of a car. We were able to get it good enough at the end to run those guys down. Proud of our effort. This is a great run for this Sport Clips Toyota. I want to get these guys a win. I keep talking about it because we keep finishing second, but eventually we’ll knock down the door.” Hamlin said.

Kyle Busch finished third, Kevin Harvick fourth and Elliott Sadler finished fifth.

“It was a really good race for us. Coming home third is pretty good for our Monster Energy Camry. The guys have worked really hard at trying to make our program better and getting it to where it needs to be.” Busch said.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. had driveshaft problems and took it to the garage on lap 65. He returned to the track 22 laps later and finished 26th.

“I think the U-joint between the driveshaft and the transmission broke first. We’re gonna have to go back and look at it. It was a new driveshaft, new everything, so it was a tough day. Our Ford EcoBoost Mustang was by far a top-five car and had a chance to win for sure, so we can take that from today and go on.” Stenhouse Jr. said.

Stenhouse now holds a 13-point lead in the series standings over Sadler.

“We picked up some points today with a top-five finish.” Sadler said.

Joey Logano was the pole sitter setting a fast time of 30.157 and finished 6th. For Logano, it was his first NNS pole.

“It didn’t play out the way it was supposed to. It didn’t play out right according to a sixth place finish.” Logano said. “Overall got a pole today, so that’s good. Just wish we were a little bit faster. We weren’t quite quick enough to win the race anyways, but I feel like we had a third place car for sure.”

Travis Pastrana spun several times, bringing out the caution flag twice. He finished 24th, five laps down.

Danica Patrick qualified third, but she fell a lap down after getting caught on pit road during an early caution. She battled her way back to finish 13th. Patrick is now ninth in points.

Rookie Austin Dillon, who was the fastest qualifying rookie (2nd) finished 11th, while Cole Whitt finished 28th.