Brad Keselowski: "I owe David Ragan and his fans an apology"
May 7, 2013
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
After
Sunday's Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway, Brad Keselowski on
Twitter in essence accused David Ragan of trying to manipulate
his running position before the green-white-checkered restart.
On Tuesday, Keselowski took the high road and apologized for his comments in an open letter on his
www.bradracing.com
web site, indicating he had jumped the gun in blaming Ragan for the
confusion before the restart. An abundance of web hits crashed the site
for more than two hours.
Here's the text of Keselowski's apology:
"I
finally had a chance to digest what happened at the end of the Cup race
at Talladega on Sunday. I owe David Ragan and his fans an
apology. I placed blame on David Ragan for the restart lineup confusion
when it wasn't his fault.
"I was very passionate about the finish because I thought we had a chance to win the race if I restarted the race in the 10th
position instead of ninth. Passion is a very important characteristic
to a champion driver. That passion is not something I will apologize
for. The outside line -- the 10th spot, in particular -- was a huge advantage over the 9th position.
David executed that positioning perfectly for the win.
"I
know first-hand what it's like to take a lower-budget team (to) Victory
Lane. My comments were never to detract from their victory.
They were only to express my opinion that I thought we had been
wronged.
"Basically
what happened is that, when the yellow came out at lap 184 the lineup
was supposed to be Scott Speed, myself and David (in
the eighth, ninth and 10th positions, respectively). We were
actually lined up David, Scott and me because we were unsure what the
lineup was. NASCAR did not change this before opening pit road so by
procedure we were lined up in the proper positions.
NASCAR made a last-minute lineup change that we missed as we were
getting ready to go back to green. David attempted to make it right by
letting me go at the start/finish line with one to go. I thought he was
attempting to change the pylon (scoring tower)
because the order is supposed to be set before pit road opens.
"With
the multicar wreck (on Lap 183), the rain and the impending darkness it
is easy to see how NASCAR could have made that mistake.
"It
was a confusing time for all of us. I want to send a sincere
congratulation out to David Ragan and everyone at Front Row Motorsports.
It was a very cool win for our sport." -- Brad
NASCAR issued a statement after the race saying that Ragan had lined up properly for the restart.
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