In the second race of the Chase for NASCAR’s championship, here is what was surprising and not surprising from the 18th annual Sylvania 300 at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
New Hampshire is the next stop on the Chase tour, and if anyone needs to rewrite expectations it would be Aric Almirola and AJ Allmendinger. Both have not done well at Loudon in the past, though Almirola was fifth in the race 15 months ago and the Dinger has one Top Ten.
“I automatically advanced to the next round of the Chase,” Keselowski said. “So you can pencil my name on the bracket to the ‘Contender’ round. And speaking of things written in pencil, the Chase format has seen more alterations than Bruton Smith’s pants.”
Within those 40 laps, we saw Brad Keselowski shoot through the middle between the dueling Kyle Larson and Kevin Harvick to take the lead with sixteen to go. It was a great piece of racing, and once he was through he was gone. Two in a row, fifth of the season, and Keselowski earned himself a berth in the next round of the Chase.
A late-race battle between a rookie and three previous Chicagoland winners ended in Brad Keselowski capturing the checkered flag in his series-leading fifth win of the 2014 Sprint Cup season.
From Kevin Harvick swapping his pit crew to Marcos Ambrose announcing he will leave NASCAR at the season’s end, here is what else was surprising and not surprising from the 14th annual MyAFibStory.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.
Brad Keselowski claimed his second victory in a row and fifth for the season at Chicagoland Speedway in the opening race of the chase. With the victory he secured a spot in the Contender round of the run for the championship. The victory was the first for Ford Motor Company at Chicagoland Speedway.
When NASCAR announced the new Chase grid system, and the expansion to sixteen drivers, I immediately cringed. Sixteen drivers, in my opinion, is too many and it “waters down” the significance of the championship.
You know you have a problem when the most exciting action at the track was the shirtless guy parked upon the top of the fence on turn four. Richmond was to excitement what Rusty Wallace is to broadcasting. In fact, I think I broke my fast forward button.
