“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.
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.
With only two more positions to be filled, and one race remaining, Saturday’s race at Richmond International Raceway held the promise of a no holds barred, fight to the finish. Instead it delivered an uneventful event but a dominant fourth win by Brad Keselowski who led 383 out of 400 laps. His fourth win also puts him atop the Chase Grid.
1. Jeff Gordon: Gordon was running second early at Atlanta when he blew a tire, sending him into the wall. He fell two laps down, but battled back to regain the lead lap and finished 17th.
Atlanta was a race we thought would be decided by a driver who had a great car, one who had a great pit crew, or one who was simply too desperate for victory to be denied. In the end, it was decided by two guys who turned their high-powered machines into bumper cars to force a green-white-checker...or two.
With an intense heat radiating from the track and an even more intense return to the track for Tony Stewart, here is what was surprising and not surprising from the 55th annual Oral-B USA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
In 2015, the Atlanta 500 makes its return. Well, sort of. That was the name of the early season race in Atlanta before they pimped out the brand to the sponsors. In 2010, they lost that date, while what once was the season finale in Cup got moved to where we find it today.
We learned a lot at Bristol on Saturday night. We learned that there might be some bashed fenders. Okay, we already knew that. Kyle Busch learned it as well as anyone else.
