- Brad Keselowski won Stage 1, a chaotic 125-lap segment that featured five cautions and two red flag delays. He was racing teammate Ryan Blaney for the lead on lap 117 when a five-car accident among a group of lapped cars happened just in front of the two leaders. Keselowski cleanly made it through the incident and held on during a one-lap green flag dash to end the segment.
- In Stage 2, Keselowski used a crafty pit call by crew chief Paul Wolfe to win the segment. Keselowski was 14th under caution on lap 213 when Wolfe made the decision to pit for left-side tires, moving Keselowski up to third when the race went green on lap 217. He briefly fell to seventh on the restart but rallied back, taking the lead on lap 244 and holding off Kyle Busch for the stage win.
- Keselowski’s strong run was spoiled by a cut tire. He was running fifth with 80 laps to go in the 500-lap event when he began falling back through the pack. As the laps ticked off toward the conclusion of the event, Keselowski gamely tried to hold on, but on lap 471 his left front tire went down and he brushed the wall in Turn 2, bringing out the final caution of the race on lap 471.
- He was able to nurse his car back to pit road where Wolfe and the Discount Tire team hastily made repairs. Keselowski was credited with a 23rd place finish. Keselowski is fifth in the MENCS driver standings, 94 points behind the leader.
“The tire came apart on that restart and we were trying to bring it on home, but it just didn’t come together.”
FOOD CITY 500
APRIL 16, 2018 . BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
CAR: NO. 2 DISCOUNT TIRE FORD FUSION
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Brad you are a great driver very smart racer things happen tires going that other peoples mistakes things out of your control my son is one of your number one fans you will make the 16 drivers in championship run one thing missing i think get that mojo back i liked that bump and run on larson thats what you need quite being so nice especially to people like 18 i cant stand to even say his name that smerk look on his face after races a spoiled bratt wish i could help you out with him mabbie one day i will cross his bath and i will put him in the wall or stick him in a trash can head first just relax get them wns in the final 10 races and bring us another championship either way your still me and my sons number one fan remember you dont have to stand tall but sometimes you have to stand up
The finish really doesn’t show how well you guys ran. Actually all of Team Penske and the Wood Brothers were running pretty good at the start of things and looked in the very early going as if they were going to be the dominant cars. Unfortunately Ryan gets caught up in something pretty early on and then Brad towards the end of things. Nice that Joey got a top ten finish and Paul a top fifteen finish. Just not where I figured things were going to end up at the start of the event. Of course I also didn’t figure the race would take 24 hours to complete either. I really hope Mother Nature chills out this upcoming weekend, I would like to actually see a race flag to flag.