Keselowksi wins the STP 400 at Kansas Speedway
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[/media-credit]Brad Keselowksi conserved just enough fuel and held off Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Sunday to win the STP 400 at Kansas Speedway.
“We finally caught a break. Awesome call, Paul.” Keselowski radioed to crew chief Paul Wolfe.
Keselowksi snapped 75-race winless streak for his first win of the season and the second of his Sprint Cup career. This was also the first win for Penske Racing since Kurt Busch won last year’s Coca Cola 600.
“We’ve been so close. We’ve been plugging away. We had a car that I thought was capable of winning. I had a car last week that sat on the pole and had a shot at it and just caught the wrong line on the restart. The same thing at Dover and Darlington, we could just never catch that good break. You can only put yourself in that position so many times before you’re going to catch the right break. We caught a great break today because of all the hard work by the Miller Lite team that works on these Dodge Chargers. We got great gas mileage and that doesn’t hurt either.” Keselowksi said.
Both Keselowksi and Earnhardt were driving a fuel mileage race. Earnhardt Jr. appeared to be looking a late charge on Keselowksi for the win, but he was also advised to back down to insure he would make it to the finish. Earnhardt just came one position short again this week, just one spot short from snapping his 106-race winless streak.
“I had a good car, you know. I spun out up there tryin’ to find a little more speed on the top. We had a fast car though. Just started way back there in the back, man. We ain’t qualified no better than 22nd besides Daytona and Talladega. We need to fix that somehow. It was a fast car.” Earnhardt said.
“We shouldn’t have run second again. We’ve got to fix some things. We’ve got fast cars so we can be fast.” Earnhardt added.
Denny Hamlin finished third, Jeff Gordon fourth and Carl Edwards finished fifth.
“It was a good run for our FedEx team. We had a good car at the beginning, the middle and just at the end I think something gave out in the front end and it just went real bad tight. Luckily, we came in to make an adjustment and coming in and getting fuel obviously worked out for our advantage.” Hamlin said of his third place finish.
“Well it is an awesome run for our Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet. That is for sure.” Gordon said. “They did an awesome job. We had a great race car all weekend long. We unloaded great and it showed up in the race all day long today. We got a little bit loose, it seemed like the track freed up a little bit on that last run and Kurt (Busch) got out there on me. But, all-in-all a great top-five, a great day in the points for us.”
Polesitter Kurt Busch led for 152 laps. Whole leading he had to stop for fuel with 10 laps remaining. He finished ninth.
“I’m proud of the way that this team has run. To have a car to lead laps today and be very competitive, I was all smiles. I felt coming into the weekend that if we could pace ourselves, have good team communication, we would be competitive. It was great. There was always something in the back of my mind today that we weren’t going to win, but I’m glad that Brad Keselowski got this win for those Miller Lite guys, for Dodge.” Kurt Busch said.
Pre-race at Kansas… Busch, Childress and NASCAR take on it all
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[/media-credit]Tempers flared hotter than the Kansas sun after the Camping World Truck Race on Saturday. With rumors and stories about a wild altercation between legendary car owner Richard Childress and driver Kyle Busch. The stories appeared to grow in intensity from the time the story broke until this morning when everyone returned to the track.
There wasn’t a black eye as far as I could see for Busch, but he was wearing his normal vision sun glasses. Although when he went into the NASCAR truck he was not wearing them. He was in pretty good humor for someone who was punched by a 65 year old man who is significantly larger than he is. No one will say absolutely for certain that some of the extreme stories that have been reported are true. Everyone does agree on one thing however, that is that.at least one punch a piece was thrown. I attempted to ask Kyle Busch about the incident and he said,”You can ask me a question as long as you are not asking about yesterday.”
Coach Gibbs was the first to go into the NASCAR truck. He was followed shortly by Kyle and then approx 15 minutes later by Richard Childress.The entire meeting took approx 15 minutes with all parties declining comment on their exit from the truck. Coach Gibbs did say he would have a statement later on today.
If I may be blunt and honest, There have been a lot of liberties taken here with this story. Richard Childress of late has lost a lot of man hours to fixing equipment that Kyle Busch has been involved in tearing up. Man hours equal money. I doubt that Richard Childress is hurting for money but to spend it unnecessarily is frustrating to have to spend it.
Also if you stop and look at it RCR cars or trucks have been involved in more incidents with Busch than any other team. Combine that with the heat and humidity here. Combine it then again with the frustration of wrecks and mechanical issues and you have the recipe for disaster and aggression. Now I am not making excuses for Childress if he threw the first punch, then he is responsible and should at least get what the drivers would have gotten for the same behavior. He obviously did by accounts throw the first punch. My real issue with that is it was apparently pre-meditated as he removed jewelery and handed it to Austin Dillion. It appears, and appearances are sometimes deceiving, that he intended to spark the physical altercation.
NASCAR issued the following statement at approximately 930AM.
“NASCAR has reviewed the incident involving Richard Childress and Kyle Busch after the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race Saturday at Kansas Speedway. We have met with all parties involved and have determined what happened yesterday is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by NASCAR
Richard Childress’s actions were not appropriate and fell short of the standard we expect of owners in this sport. We have met with Childress this morning and made our position very clear to him. Further, we expect he will make it clear to all in his organization to ensure this situation does not escalate any further. We will announce our actions regarding this incident Monday.
Kyle Busch remains on probation with NASCAR and we continue to watch his actions carefully. However, we have determined that Kyle’s involvement in this incident does not violate his probation and no further action is required.”
Mike Helton made it clear that there were restrictions on Richard Childress as far as where he can and can’t be for this race. He didn’t give out any specifics except to say that the teams required leadership for this weekend and he would be allowed to stay at the track with restrictions.
Helton also stated that they would make further decisions on penalties and actions this week perhaps sooner than they normally would.
