Posts Tagged ‘Brad Keselowski’

Justin Allgaier was able to hold off his teammate Brad Keselowski in the closing laps of the Scott’s Turf Builder 300 to get his very first Nascar Nationwide win at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Keselowski, the pole-sitter who led 73 laps, finished second to give team owner Roger Penske his first 1-2 finish in the Nationwide Series.

It was a great day for Penske Racing Nationwide program. Allgaier took to the lead on a restart with 27 laps to go and stayed in front the rest of the way to get his first series victory.

“I’m happy for Justin,” Keselowski said. “There’s nothing like a first-time winner in NASCAR.”

Keselowski could have used the famous Bristol bump and run on Allgaier to take the lead towards the end of the race but chose not to. I think mainly because they’re teammates, and they are both are up top of the Nationwide Series points.

“On the restart there he ran me up pretty high, but I really had no room to be angry at him because I wrecked him here before,” Keselowski said. “I lifted and let him in. I thought I had a shot at getting it back, but I didn’t catch the right breaks as far as lapped traffic.

“I erred on the side of caution. The last thing I need is to wreck either one of us. It’s still a relatively new program. That’s the last thing we need.”

Allgaier called the win “unbelievable. That battle with Brad was awesome. I couldn’t be happier to see two Penske cars up there running for the win.”

Although Keselowski, chose not to push Allgaier from the lead in the final laps Saturday, Kevin Harvick had other thoughts in the fight for fifth place. Harvick pushed Joey Logano’s car in the left rear in the final turn on the final lap, sending Logano into the wall and dropping him from fourth to 14th.

“He kept chopping me and chopping me,” said Harvick, who had tried to pass Logano for a long series of laps. “I got into him a little bit. I hate that it happened. You got to do what you got to do.”

Logano clearly upset with the contact with Harvick stomped off after the race without comment.

On lap 91, contact between Scott Wimmer and Brian Scott resulted in a spin by Colin Braun, and Braun’s car was slammed in the rear by the following car of Steve Wallace. The impact shot Braun’s car into the air, and Wallace’s car came to a stop partially underneath it as fire erupted. There were no injuries.

A few laps later, James Buescher tapped Trevor Bayne’s car in the second turn, and both cars slid through the turn. Coleman Pressley spun out as

he slowed behind them.

Kyle Busch led 59 laps and finished third. Edwards came home fourth and retained the series points lead by 26 points over Keselowski. Allgaier is third in the standings, 31 points behind Edwards.

Speed Tv contributed to this report.

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I’m kind of shocked that Keselowski is going with this without some kind of rebuttal. I feel this is not over In Brad’s eyes, I can’t see him not doing anything about this. I feel there  has to be some retaliation on his part.

I don’t see it happing in the near future because Nascar”s eyes will be watching.

Mike Hembree: at Speed Tv wrote this report.

Driver Brad Keselowski expressed support for NASCAR Tuesday after the sanctioning body announced its decision to place driver Carl Edwards on a three-race probation  for his role in a late-race accident Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Edwards bumped Keselowski with two laps remaining in the race, sending Keselowski’s car high into the air before it slammed to the race surface on its roof.

“I support NASCAR in the decision they communicated today,” Keselowski said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. “They are not in an enviable position when it comes to these matters, but they do an outstanding job. The unfortunate part about what happened on Sunday is that it has overshadowed a win (by his teammate, Kurt Busch) and an overall solid performance by Penske Racing at Atlanta.”

Edwards could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

NASCAR’s decision appears to leave drivers with a lot of room to maneuver under and around the rules of the game in deciding how to deal with confrontation.

The line that NASCAR says drivers can’t cross remains rather ill-defined, in other words.

“If you draw a line in the sand, then you’re saying you can do everything up to that line and it’s OK, but anything over that, it’s not,” driver David Reutimann said Tuesday during a teleconference after NASCAR’s announcement. “I don’t think you can do that. It’s not a perfect system, nor will it ever be.

“We’re a bunch of emotional guys out there, and sometimes when we put the helmet on … some of us don’t always think as clearly as we probably ought to, especially myself.

“It’s complicated, and I would not want to have NASCAR’s job in this deal. But I think they’ve done a good job with this, with the penalties so far, and hopefully everybody can just go on and race and we won’t have issues anymore. That would be great.”

Of course, that’s also unlikely. Boys will be boys, and NASCAR already has told them to “have at it.”

One of the problems linked to aggressive and retaliatory racing is that innocent drivers often become involved in accidents caused by road rage, a point that bothers Reutimann.

“I think the thing that ticks you off is getting caught up in somebody else’s retaliation,” he said. “I think that really aggravates you to the point where you’re like, man, I didn’t do anything wrong, I just got caught up in a deal. Sometimes that happens.”

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Kurt winds back to back spring races at Atlanta winning  the Kobalt Tools 500 with a dominate car all day.

The victory was great for Busch and new crew, chief Steve Addington, who used to be crew chief for Kurts younger brother Kyle Busch last season. It was a bitter sweet victory, all people are going to be talking about and remember is the late race incident between known rivals,  Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski.

Only two laps remaining Edwards clearly turned Keselowski on purpose, sending him upside down in the frontstretch. Keselowski’s car spun around backwards sending his car airborne into the fronstretch wall upside down. A wreck that should never had happened, this isn’t short track racing were the speeds aren’t so high. Edwards was black flag parked for the rest of the race and had to go to the NASCAR trailer immediately after climbing out of his car.

Fortunately Keselowski was not injured in the incident, but clearly and understandably upset. Edwards told reporters he intentional spun Keselowski but didn’t intend for it to go that bad.

Earlier in the race Edwards and Keselowski got together entering turn one were Edwards said Keselowski never gives him room. After Edwards watched the replay, he made it sound that Keselowski getting into him wasn’t as blatant as he initially thought it was.

With the late race incident, it sent the race into overtime. Taking two green white checkered restarts to finish the race.

Kurt Busch got a great restart on the first green white checkered attempt, but was slowed by another caution on the first lap with a multi car accidents going into turn three. Jamie McMurry went into turn three hard getting loose and creating a Hugh pile up.

On the second restart, Busch got a great jump. This time, the they were able to  completed two laps safely, this is the first win for Busch and his Penske team.

“I’m just so happy to bring this car home to victory lane,” Busch said. “Even with all the restarts at the end, I felt like we had the car to beat.”

Busch led 129 of the race’s 341 laps. Only Kahne at 144 led more

Kevin Harvick, who finished ninth, kept the point lead. Kenseth is second, Greg Biffle third, Jimmie Johnson fourth and Clint Bowyer fifth.

Some of the top teams had some serious tire issues. A lot of blown out tires and punctures during the race.

Caution No. 8 came out when Denny Hamlin’s left-front tire blew, forcing the field to slow at lap 288. A couple of laps after the restart, the caution came out again,  the cars of Elliott Sadler and Max Papis made contact.

Johnson pitted during that caution so that his team could repair damage Johnson’s car received when he and Ryan Newman bumped.

On lap 158 the right front tire blew on Joey  car , causing significant damage to the front of the Logano’s Toyota and bringing out the day’s sixth caution.

Lap 114 Mark Martin slid along the frontstretch when his car lost its left rear tire. Martin kept the car off the wall, but his Chevrolet later was damaged severely in the caution that resulted from the first green white checkered attempt.

Martin did not finish and ended up 33rd.

The Edwards Keselowski first incident caused the first multi-car caution flag of the day on lap 40.

A blown tire sent David Ragan into the third-turn wall on lap 35, causing the second caution of the race. The event had barely started when a tire problem sent Robby Gordon into the first-turn wall.

RESULTS: KOBALT TOOL 500

Speed tv contributed to this report

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A race that was pretty much in the hands of Joey Logano ended up going to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch.

Busch passed Greg Biffle in the last mile Saturday at Auto Club Speedway to win the Stater Bros. 300 Nationwide Series race after the dominant Logano had led 130 laps, consistently rejecting competitions all afternoon.

Logano’s dominance for much of the race turned it  into a snoozer, but the final two laps it was a green white checkered finish making it a tight race to the finish.

Logano led going into turn one on the restart, but Biffle got under Lagano and nudged him , making slight contact with Logano and sending him high in turn two putting Logano back to fourth place as Busch and Brad Keselowski also soared past.

On the final lap, coming out of turn four Busch got to the inside of Biffle, side drafting him and slingshoting past Biffle to win the race, Logano got spin by Brad Keselowski coming to the start finish line, Logano wound up in the infield grass.

Busch, only led  four of the 150 laps was on the tail of Logano most of the race, this gives JGR its fifth straight Nationwide win at Auto Club Speedway.

“That’s crazy,” Busch said. “That’s some racing there.”

Not too surprising was Logano’s reaction at the end of the race,not to pleased with the turn one events. He said he was hit by Biffle in the first turn on the final restart. “I realize it’s tight racing, but he could have done it differently,” Logano said. “You keep doing that, and eventually it’s going to come back and bite you.”

Biffle said Logano made a mistake “and spun his tires and couldn’t get going. He tried to come down and block the bottom, but I already had a run and I wasn’t going to give that up.”

Logano led 47 of the first 50 laps and 68 of the first 71 and was rarely challenged at the front until the closing laps.

Logano had a 1.7-second lead over Busch with five laps to go when Brendan Gaughan produced the last caution of the race with a spinout, setting up the wild finish.

Danica Patrick, making her second start in the series, fell to the rear of the field early in the race and was lapped by the leaders on lap 18. She finished 31st.

Speed TV contributed to this report.

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