RFK brought home a pair of top-10 finishes on Easter Sunday at Richmond as Brad Keselowski finished eighth in the BuildSubmarines.com Ford, and Chris Buescher ninth in the NEXLETOL Ford.
Sunday’s 400-mile race was initially affected by inclement weather, which for the first time in Next Gen history (outside of North Wilkesboro) forced NASCAR to employ rain tires to start a race. The weather ultimately moved on though, in what turned into a NASCAR Overtime scenario by race end.
The top-10 for Buescher marks his fourth-straight, the first time in his Cup career to record four-straight top-10s. He’s one of only four drivers this season with five top-10s. Keselowski earned his third top-10 of the young season.
6 Recap
Keselowski began his Richmond race from the 23rd position following Saturday’s qualifying session. With damp conditions on the ¾-mile track as the race began, teams began the night with rain tires as NASCAR eventually threw a caution at lap 30 to reset the field.
With slick tires on from that point on, Keselowski went on to finish 19th in the opening stage at lap 70, and after the first live pit stop of the evening, would line up 16th on the ensuing restart. The following 89 laps ran caution-free, with Keselowski pitting under green at lap 122 from the 15th spot. When the next yellow was displayed at lap 168, Keselowski was seventh and went on to finish 11th by the stage end (lap 230).
The BuildSubmarines.com Ford fired off 10th for the final stage, as Keselowski kept the No. 6 inside the top-10 from then on, with a pair of green-flag pit stops spanning the final stage. A final caution flew with just two laps remaining as Keselowski ran ninth, and he held on to the eighth spot in the final restart in NASCAR Overtime to finish eighth.
“That was respectable,” Keselowski said. “I don’t think we had the speed to win the race, but we had the speed to run in that eighth to 12th range and we kind of did that most of the night. We ended up executing at the end to get an eighth, so it was respectable. We took a little step backwards, but we’ll learn from it and be better.”
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