Gordon wins season finale; Keselowski wins 2012 NSCS championship

After a controversial race last week at Phoenix, Jeff Gordon stretched his fuel mileage and won Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Oh my gosh, it means so much. This is for DUPONT right here. 20 years. That is a long time to be together with a sponsor. For them to commemorate that with this awesome paint scheme, this silver car means so much. I knew we had a great race car going into the race.” Gordon said.

Gordon crossed the finish line 1.028 seconds ahead of Clint Bowyer for his second win of the season.

“Can you believe that? There was one restart where I had Joey (Logano) and maybe Aric (Almirola) and Clint right there surrounding me. That thing is going to work itself out some way through racing. I felt terrible how I went about it, and I still regret the way I went about it. But, I can’t take it back. But what we can do is look forward and race guys as hard and clean as we possibly can.” Gordon said.

Ryan Newman finished third, Kyle Busch fourth and Greg Biffle finished fifth.

The day, the battle, was between 5-time Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and the new contender, Brad Keselowski.

Johnson was leading the race and the championship until lap 213 during a schedules green flag pit stop. The pit crew left off a rear lug nut and Johnson had to come back in to pit again. Johnson lost a lap and the title started fading at that point. Then on lap 226 Johnson slowed and went to the pits for repairs……the championship was over for Johnson and the No.48 team.

“Pretty heartbreaking. We were doing what we needed to do, certainly in a position to put a lot of pressure on the 2 car. But that’s racing.” Johnson said.

Keselowski finished 15th, but more importantly, he finished first in the standings, 39 points ahead oh Johnson. This championship marks the first-ever Sprint Cup Series title for legendary car owner Roger Penske.

After exiting his car, Keselowski summed his life long story up.

“I saw this really cool video that Ray Lewis did and he said, ‘Throughout my whole life I’ve been told that I’m not big enough, I’m not fast enough, I’m not strong enough and I don’t have what it takes.’” Keselowski said.

“I’ve used that as a chip on my shoulder that’s carried me through my whole career. It took ’til this year for me to realize, they’re right. I’m not big enough, fast enough, strong enough. No person is. Only a team can do that. And these guys up here, they make me big enough, fast enough, strong enough to do anything we want to do.” Keselowski added.

Unofficial top-12 standings after Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway