Cool-Down Lap
Brad Keselowski back in the same hole he just escaped
Oct. 27, 2014
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
Apparently, Brad Keselowski can’t stand prosperity.
Or perhaps he’s just trying to extract every ounce of drama possible from the new Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup format.
A week
after keeping his championship hopes alive with a storybook victory at
Talladega Superspeedway, in a race he had to win to advance to the
Chase’s Eliminator Round, Keselowski
and his No. 2 Ford team are back on skid row.
And,
once again, he has company on his quick trip from the penthouse to the
outhouse heading into Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET
on ESPN).
At
Talladega, Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. entered the
GEICO 500 facing win-or-bust scenarios. Obviously, the trophy went to
the Keselowski and No. 2 Team
Penske squad, and the pink slips went to Johnson and Earnhardt.
After
Martinsville, Keselowski can commiserate with fellow championship
favorite Kevin Harvick, who met his own Waterloo on Sunday at
Martinsville in the form of fellow Chase
driver Matt Kenseth.
Keselowski and Harvick fell to the bottom of the Chase grid in very different, but equally precipitous ways.
Harvick
was first to go. After starting 33rd thanks to an overly loose setup in
his car for Friday’s qualifying session, Harvick had worked his way
methodically into the top
10 before the halfway point of the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500.
But on
Lap 228, the race went awry for the driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas
Racing Chevrolet. Kenseth drove hard into Turn 1 in the bottom lane, ran
up on teammate and fellow
Chase driver Denny Hamlin, wheel-hopped in the corner and spun,
knocking Harvick into the outside wall.
Harvick
drove his smoking car to the garage, where his team performed masterful
surgery over the course of 40 laps and sent Harvick back to the track
to complete the race in
a Chevy carcass that looked more like a modified than a Cup car.
Harvick
finished 33rd, dropped 33 points behind race runner-up and Chase leader
Jeff Gordon and left Martinsville with a chip on his shoulder and a
promise to make sure Kenseth
wouldn’t win the championship.
For
most of the race, Harvick seemed likely to finish alone near the bottom
of the running order, but Keselowski proved once again that misery loves
company.
In a
freakish failure after a restart on Lap 434 of 500, Keselowski broke a
rear gear. Like Harvick, he took his car to the garage, where his crew
replaced the gear within
28 laps and sent the No. 2 Ford back on track to complete the race.
Keselowski
finished 31st, dropped 31 points behind Gordon and left Martinsville
facing the same sort of challenge that confronted him at Talladega.
With
the top five drivers bunched within a seven-point range, and with a cut
from eight to four Chase drivers looming two weeks hence at Phoenix,
both Keselowski and Harvick
know the certain path to avoid elimination from the championship—and in
all probability the only path—is to win one of the next two races.
That,
of course, leaves us with a litany of intriguing unanswered questions as
the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads for Texas and then Phoenix.
Can lightning strike twice for Keselowski?
Should
Kenseth start looking over his shoulder now, or will Harvick wait to
exact payback only if Kenseth makes the final four at Homestead, where
the four remaining Chase
drivers will battle for a title that goes to the highest finisher among
the four?
Can
Harvick live up to his nickname “The Closer” by winning one of the next
two races in a car that has been the class of the field for most of the
season? Harvick will be
a heavy favorite at Phoenix, where he led 224 of 312 laps in a
dominating win on March 2.
Or,
conversely, will two of the year’s best-performing cars, drivers and
teams suffer elimination under a new Chase format that has no memory?
By the time we exit Phoenix, all those questions will be answered.
Except, perhaps, for the one about Kenseth. Harvick may save that surprise for the season finale.
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