"When I hit the wall,” Keselowski said, “I thought the worst. But the Chase is long and grueling, and won’t be won in a day. You’ve got to keep your eyes on the prize. For me personally, I’m able to see the ‘Lite’ at the end of the tunnel.”
New Hampshire, for about 180 laps, was a mind numbing experience. It was the Round-and-round 300, and when you add the beleaguered ESPN desk trios to the mix, it was damn near unwatchable. Then stuff started to happen.
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.”
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.
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.
