"Am I dreaming?" - Brad Keselowski
Brad Keselowski takes advantage of a late pit stop to win the Bojangles' Southern 500 at Darlington.
Brad Keselowski takes advantage of a late pit stop to win the Bojangles' Southern 500 at Darlington.
One thing NASCAR fans know is the fastest car doesn't always win. Brad Keselowski proved that point on Sunday night by taking advantage of a fast pit stop to win the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. The win is the first of the season for Keselowski and the first win for team owner Roger Penske at Darlington since 1975.
The start of the race was delayed for 45 minutes by lightning, but once the green flag dropped it was Kyle Larson who electrified the track. Starting from the second position, Larson quickly took the lead and simply sped away from the field. He took the checkered green for Stage One and Stage Two and led 284 of the first 344 laps. With only 23 laps remaining in the race Larson, who has five runner-up finishes with no wins on the season, seemed to be a shoo-in to grab his elusive first checkered flag of the season.
Then Jeffrey Earnhardt spun out in Turn 2 to bring out the sixth yellow flag of the race. Larson led the field onto pit row for the final pit stop of the night, but it was Brad Keselowski who came out of pit row first by inches over Larson. The race re-started on Lap 348 and Keselowski sped out with the lead. Larson, who was stronger all night on long runs rather than short runs, couldn't catch up and was eventually passed by Joey Logano. Keselowski led the last 19 laps to bring home the checkered flag followed by his Team Penske teammate Logano. Larson had to settle for a disappointing third place finish.
"I’ve got to give a lot of credit to my pit crew," said Keselowski. "We were running second and that last stop they nailed it and got us out in the lead. I thought Kyle was really good, and he was flat-out flying. I know how it goes. In 2015 we led a bunch of laps and lost it on the last pit stop and today my team won it on the last pit stop. Then it was just about me hitting all my marks and not screwing it up. How cool is this winning in Rusty Wallace’s Throwback car, the Southern 500, Throwback Weekend."
Kyle Larson put on a brave face after the race despite another heartbreaking finish. The Southern 500 marked the 10th time Larson has led over a hundred laps in a Cup Series race so far in his career. He has only won one of those races.
"It’s always important to come out the leader off pit road or be the control car on the restart," said Larson. "I felt like if I could have been in clean air, I would have been all right. All day when I would get in traffic I’d get loose. There on that last run I was just really loose and allowed Joey (Logano) to get by. I knew the only really weakness we would have throughout the race was a short run and that’s what it kind of came down to. On long runs, I was just really, really good all race long. That was good. Hat’s off to everybody back at our race shop. This car was extremely fast. We had the dominant car and we proved it. We just came up a little bit short. Thanks to DC Solar and everybody, like I said. It’s nice to show some dominant speed like that and a 1.5-mile like this leading up to the Playoffs."
Kevin Harvick nearly caught Larson at the end, but fell just short to finish in fourth place one spot ahead of Chase Elliott. Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Erik jones, Jamie McMurray and Denny Hamlin round out the top ten.
With only one race remaining before The Chase For The Cup begins, the Southern 500 helped clear up the playoff picture. Denny Hamlin and Aric Almirola clinched playoff spots by virtue of points earned throughout the season. Now 14 drivers have clinched playoff positions with two still up for grabs at Indianapolis next week.
Kyle Larson was the winner of Stage One and Stage Two, the first race stages he has captured this season. Despite being winless this year Larson has clinched a playoff spot and will receive two bonus points for the postseason for his checkered greens.
Click here for full race results.
Kyle Busch is still the leader in the NASCAR drivers points standings, with second place holder Kevin Harvick sitting 39 points behind. Only one race remains in the regular season and Harvick needs a miracle to win the regular season championship. No matter how well Harvick finishes next week, he needs Busch to have an extremely bad day to have any shot. The regular season champion will receive 15 bonus points for the postseason.
You can see the updated Driver's Points Standings here.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series returns to the Hoosier State next week for the Big Machine Vodka 400 at The Brickyard Sunday September 9th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Photo credits: Nascar1996 CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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