 |
Keselowski Impresses with Career Best Finish at Fontana;
JR Motorsports’ Brad
Keselowski led four times for 27 laps and emerged from Saturday’s
NASCAR Nationwide Series Copart 300 with a fifth-place finish, his
career-best result at Auto Club Speedway. The No. 88 GoDaddy.com
team survived seven cautions over the race’s final 50 laps and
a green-white-checkered finish before taking the checkered flag. Keselowski
has now led laps in 16 races this season for a total of 343 laps. Joey
Logano won his fifth race of the year, followed by Brian Vickers and
Carl Edwards in third. Kevin Harvick and Keselowski rounded out
the top-five finishers.
No. 88 GoDaddy Team / Keselowski
Start – 7th / Finish – 5th / Laps Led – 27 / Points – 160
/ Point Standings – 3rd
Having led on three separate occasions and firmly cemented himself
among the front runners, Keselowski found himself in familiar form – fighting
for the win – against familiar adversaries – Carl Edwards,
Denny Hamlin Greg Biffle and Joey Logano.
With laps waning, Keselowski went door-to-door with Hamlin for the
lead spot, trading the point on several occasions. Hamlin, who
had replaced points leader Kyle Busch in the No. 18 Toyota during the
first caution, was also left to thwart off advances from Edwards and
Biffle.
The four-way battle ultimately came to blows on lap 146 when Biffle,
Hamlin, and Keselowski went three-wide into turn four. With No.
88 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet on the bottom, Hamlin made contact with Biffle
on the outside, and the two eliminated themselves with a hard crash. Keselowski
came out unscathed and would restart in first place. But the
hard-charging Logano would soon take the top spot away.
The race’s final caution on lap 148 set up a green-white-checkered
finish. The GoDaddy.com Chevy restarted in third, but Edwards
spun his tires when the green flag dropped, creating a ripple effect
that dropped Keselowski to 10th. Keselowski regrouped and picked
up five positions to finish fifth.
The finish at Auto Club Speedway was Keselowski’s 19th top-five
and 24th top-10 of the season. Keselowski has not finished outside
of the top-10 since his June 10th race at Chicagoland.
Next Up for JR Motorsports:
Event: Dollar General 300, Lowe's Motor Speedway
Date: Friday, October 16, 2009
TV/Radio: ESPN2 (coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. EST) / PRN (broadcast
begins at 7:15 p.m. EST)
JRM Entries: No. 88 Real Fan of the Year Chevy (Brad Keselowski),
No. 5 Delphi Chevy (Tony Stewart)
|
|
Brad on
the Auto Club Race “On
the last restart, the 60 (Edwards), the 6 (David Ragan), and I were
going to work together to try and clear Logano going into turn one. The
only way we could get things going was to work together. We all pushed too hard. It backfired on us a
little bit. But in the end, we did what we did to try and beat
the 20, it just wasn’t enough today.
“ This was a total GoDaddy.com team effort today. I don’t have
the best record here at Fontana, but to come out of here with a fifth-place finish,
I’m happy with that. The crew did a great job on pit road and our
GoDaddy.com Chevy handled well when we needed it to.”
|
 |
