Keselowski stretches fuel for Kansas victory

Keselowski stretches fuel for Kansas victory

 

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

 

(June 5, 2011)

 

KANSAS CITY, Kan.—Stretching his fuel mileage to the maximum, Brad Keselowski coasted across the finish line to win Sunday’s STP 400 at Kansas Speedway.

 

In winning his first Sprint Cup race of the season and the second of his career, Keselowski got 57 green-flag laps out of his last tank of fuel. Keselowski prevented runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr., his old boss at JR Motorsports, from ending a drought that reached 106 races.

 

Denny Hamlin, who like Earnhardt was conserving fuel, came home third, followed by Jeff Gordon and series points leader Carl Edwards.

 

For once, Keselowski found himself on the right side of fortunes of racing.

 

“We’ve been so close,” Keselowski said. “We’ve been plugging away. We had a car that I thought was capable of winning. I had a car last week that sat on the pole (at Charlotte) and had a shot at it and just caught the wrong line on the restart.

 

“The same thing at Dover and Darlington—we could just never catch that good break. You can only put yourself in that position so many times before you’re going to catch the right break. We caught a great break today because of all the hard work by the Miller Lite team that works on these Dodge Chargers. We got great gas mileage, and that doesn’t hurt either.”

 

Steve Letarte, Earnhardt’s crew chief, was convinced Earnhardt’s pass of Hamlin on Lap 256 of 267 was for the win. Earnhardt and Hamlin had come to the pits under caution on Lap 163, setting up a scenario where they could finish the race on one more stop, while the vast majority of cars ahead of them would have to make two.

 

That’s the way 13th race of the season played out—with one exception. Keselowski found a way to make it to the finish after a green-flag pit stop on Lap 210, foiling the winning chances of Earnhardt and Hamlin, who made their final stops on Lap 215.

 

Over the closing laps, Letarte told Earnhardt to back down his pace and conserve fuel, sacrificing any chance of catching Keselowski, who crossed the stripe 2.813 seconds ahead of Earnhardt. In last week’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, Earnhardt had the lead before running out of fuel in the last half-mile and finishing seventh.

 

But Keselowski didn’t oblige Earnhardt by running out of gas. In fact, Keselowski had a fuel surplus at the end of the race, while Earnhardt ran out at the finish line.

 

For his part, Earnhardt, who spun off Turn 4 on Lap 152 to cause the fourth caution of the race, seemed almost embarrassed to have finished second.

 

“I went to searching for more speed and busted my butt up there on (Turns) 3 and 4,” Earnhardt said of his spin. “And tossed (away) all the spots we worked for all day.

 

“But it also gave Steve the chance to play the strategy game … when that caution came out that we came and got fuel. We put ourselves in a one-stop scenario where everybody else didn’t pit. (The leaders) can’t give up the track position because it’s so hard to pass. So they stayed out there knowing they’d have to come down to pit road twice. And that was the game that we took. … (There) could have had a caution (that) changed everybody’s strategy, but it worked out for us right to the end.

 

“We had a good car. We just didn’t have a second-place car—not at all—but we had a top-10 car.”

 

Keselowski’s Penske Racing teammate, polesitter Kurt Busch, dominated the race, leading 152 laps. But he had to pit late for fuel and finished ninth.

 

Filling out the top 10 were Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Busch and Greg Biffle. Edwards expanded his lead in the standings to 40 points over Johnson, who moved into second place. Earnhardt is third, 41 points behind Edwards.