Keselowski wins NNS race at Chicagoland
Brad Keselowski dominated the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) Dollar General 300 at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday and won his first NNS since race since returning to the series after he broke his ankle testing at Road Atlanta.
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- Keselowski led 158 of the 200 laps. He was only passed for the lead one time and that was by Edwards. Keselowski blamed lapped traffic at the time. Keselowski pitted under green flag conditions while Edwards stayed out. Eventually Edwards ran out of gas allowing Keselowski to go back to the front.
Keselowski held off Carl Edwards by 8.568 seconds for his 15thcareer NNS win and his third of the season.
“Today was a team victory. Good strategy. Good execution. Fast car. We didn’t make any mistakes and a lot of times that’s what this sport is about. It was a really strong showing here today. I’m glad to get the win. Obviously, when you can get extra track time before the Cup race it can be advantageous. I think today was one of those situations. Hopefully it will payoff for tomorrow. We’ll just have to see.” Keselowski said.
Edwards ran out of gas while leading on pit road on lap 124. Edwards came out nine seconds behind
“Congrats to Brad. He was doing a really good job. I have to thank Fastenal, Ford and I hope folks tune in tomorrow. It is going to be a great race. The first race of the Chase and there couldn’t be a better race track to run at. It has multiple grooves and it is a really fun place. I just wish we had gotten a caution to get another chance at this one.” Edwards said.
Brian Scott finished third, Aric Almirola fourth and Sam Hornish Jr. finished fifth.
Scott earned his first career pole and led five laps en route to equaling his career best NNS finish (Chicagoland 2010).
“I think there at the end we were a little faster than Carl (Edwards), but he was a little better in the traffic, and we just got a little too loose. After some of the luck we’ve had and had a fifth-place run ruined at Montreal, to be able to finish third here is a pretty good day.” Scott said.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished 8th and holds a 14-point lead over Elliott Sadler in the series standings.
There were three caution periods for only eight laps in a relatively problem free event. There were eight lead changes between only five drivers.
| Unofficial Race Results | |||||
| Dollar General 300, Chicagoland Speedway | |||||
| http://www.speedwaymedia.com/n2s/race.php?race=28 | |||||
| ========================================= | |||||
| Pos. | No. | Driver | Make | Points | |
| ========================================= | |||||
| 1 | – | 22 | Brad Keselowski | Dodge | 0 |
| 2 | – | 60 | Carl Edwards | Ford | 0 |
| 3 | – | 11 | Brian Scott | Toyota | 42 |
| 4 | – | 88 | Aric Almirola | Chevrolet | 40 |
| 5 | – | 12 | Sam Hornish Jr. | Dodge | 39 |
| 6 | – | 2 | Elliott Sadler | Chevrolet | 38 |
| 7 | – | 7 | Jamie McMurray | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 8 | – | 6 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | Ford | 36 |
| 9 | – | 33 | Paul Menard | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 10 | – | 32 | Reed Sorenson | Chevrolet | 34 |
| 11 | – | 16 | Trevor Bayne | Ford | 33 |
| 12 | – | 38 | Jason Leffler | Chevrolet | 33 |
| 13 | – | 20 | Ryan Truex * | Toyota | 31 |
| 14 | – | 31 | Justin Allgaier | Chevrolet | 30 |
| 15 | – | 19 | Mike Bliss | Chevrolet | 29 |
| 16 | – | 62 | Michael Annett | Toyota | 28 |
| 17 | – | 9 | Kenny Wallace | Toyota | 27 |
| 18 | – | 66 | Steve Wallace | Toyota | 26 |
| 19 | – | 18 | Joey Logano | Toyota | 0 |
| 20 | – | 1 | Mike Wallace | Chevrolet | 25 |
| 21 | – | 51 | Jeremy Clements | Chevrolet | 23 |
| 22 | – | 15 | Timmy Hill * | Ford | 22 |
| 23 | – | 39 | Joey Gase | Ford | 0 |
| 24 | – | 87 | Kevin Conway | Toyota | 0 |
| 25 | – | 14 | Eric McClure | Chevrolet | 19 |
| 26 | – | 70 | David Stremme | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 27 | – | 52 | Blake Koch * | Dodge | 17 |
| 28 | – | 89 | Morgan Shepherd | Chevrolet | 16 |
| 29 | – | 23 | Robert Richardson Jr. | Chevrolet | 15 |
| 30 | – | 81 | Scott Wimmer | Dodge | 14 |
| 31 | – | 40 | Josh Wise | Chevrolet | 13 |
| 32 | – | 28 | Derrike Cope | Chevrolet | 12 |
| 33 | – | 30 | Kasey Kahne | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 34 | – | 171 | Matthew Carter | Ford | 10 |
| 35 | – | 49 | Mark Green | Chevrolet | 9 |
| 36 | – | 103 | Scott Riggs | Chevrolet | 8 |
| 37 | – | 175 | Carl Long | Ford | 7 |
| 38 | – | 141 | Johnny Chapman | Chevrolet | 6 |
| 39 | – | 104 | Danny O’Quinn Jr. | Ford | 5 |
| 40 | – | 146 | Chase Miller | Chevrolet | 4 |
| 41 | – | 248 | Dennis Setzer | Chevrolet | 3 |
| 42 | – | 127 | J.J. Yeley | Ford | 0 |
| 43 | – | 150 | T.J. Bell | Chevrolet | 0 |
Dillon and RCR Closes in on Truck Championship with Win
Richard Childress Racing’s of the No 3 truck of Austin Dillon crew only slid on two tires on the final pit stop and came out ahead of Sprint Cup regular Kevin Harvick who had led the most laps up until that point. Dillon took only two tires under green and while Harvick battled with others for second place Dillon took off. The win at the Chicagoland Speedway in the Fast Five 225,
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[/media-credit]allowed the 21 year old grandson of Richard Childress to pull within 3 points of the series leader James Buescher who finished in 11th.
“This is the biggest win of my career, I think,” Dillon, said in Victory Lane. “I’ve wanted to beat those guys and everybody asks ‘How do you feel about racing against Cup drivers?’ Every time they ask me the question, I say ‘I love it’ because that proves we can go out there and run with them. It proves we can get to the next level. I’m glad when they come into the series, they are very tough to beat, they are supposed to be, and when you beat them it makes it that much better.”
“I ran up there, racing with Kyle (Busch) and Harvick. Harvick was great all night, but Stockman (Dillon’s crew chief) made the call at the end to put us out on two tires. He knows when I get out front it’s like smelling blood for a shark. When we got out there, we could just take off. The team … they kept gaining spots every time we came on pit road. I love coming on pit road when they’re like that. It’s awesome.”
The win was Dillon’s second of the 2011 season and 4th of his young career. The last four races had been won by Kevin Harvick Incorporated race trucks, a team that announced just this week that they would no longer be fielding trucks in 2012.
Harvick spoke to why he had to take four tires, “On the caution before earlier in the race around lap 85) we didn’t take any tires, so we had about 22 more laps on our tires. When you have a vibration like that, you want to win the race, but in the big picture…and the even bigger picture on Sunday (in the first Chase race) …we don’t need to blow a tire and have something happen. So when it got to the point of shaking bad enough to where I knew something was changing, I just came in and changed four tires. I knew at that point, they (the other drivers including Kyle Busch and Dillon) were going to do the opposite, but we had to change four.” Harvick led 99 of 150 laps.
Harvick, whose Nationwide Series team will move to RCR next year said, “As a driver you want to win the race, especially with a truck like that, but nine times out of 10 you don’t win ’em on days like that. But in the end, we kept it all in the family.”
Kyle Busch said after the race clearly disappointed, “Yeah, it was the right call to get us the track position. We just didn’t have the right truck tonight to keep it up front andkeep a fast truck that will hold those guys off. Just Kyle Busch Motorsports is missing something.”
