Keselowski pounces on a night of trouble
CONCORD, N.C. – Brad Keselowski has won the Southern 500, the Bristol night race, the Brickyard 400 and has now crossed the Coca-Cola 600 off his checklist of crown jewel victories.
Chase Elliott lost two races in four days, both in heartbreaking fashion.
Jimmie Johnson had a shot at snapping his three-year losing streak but instead it was extended to 102 consecutive races when Keselowski beat him in overtime early Monday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Then his car failed inspection and his runner-up finish was thrown out by NASCAR.
And that only accounts for the final seven laps of the longest race in NASCAR history.
Before it even started, Denny Hamlin had tungsten ballast fall out of his car, resulting in a penalty from NASCAR that will keep three key members of a team that already has won twice this season away from the next four races
A rewind of what happened at Charlotte Motor Speedway:
Elliott’s bad breaks
Elliott was cruising toward victory with two laps remaining in the 600 when a caution sent the race to overtime. The five additional laps – another 7.5 miles – pushed the longest event on the NASCAR calendar into a true Memorial Day finale in the Eastern time zone.
Four days earlier, Elliott was trying to win at Darlington Raceway when he was wrecked by Kyle Busch in what turned out to be the final lap of racing in a rainshortened event.
But he and his Hendrick Motorsports team bounced back. Half a lap before he took the white flag that would have cemented his victory, teammate William Byron caused a caution that torpedoed the finish.
Elliott pitted for four tires, and many others followed him to pit road. Keselowski was the first of eight drivers to stay on track. Elliott couldn’t get through traffic fast enough in the twolap overtime finish and was the third car across the finish line.
“Just try again. That’s all you can do,” a brusque Elliott said. “I can’t rewind
time. There’s no other choice.”
Keselowski shows his worth
A Daytona 500 victory is the only crown jewel race Keselowski is missing on his resume. He won Penske’s first Cup title, gave Penske his first NASCAR races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and, as the team owner noted Monday, “kept my streak going” of Memorial Day weekend victories.
Will Power and Simon Pagenaud won back-to-back Indianapolis 500s, and Pagenaud’s 2019 victory in a contract year earned the driver an extension, but it remains to be seen what happens to Keselowski.
Keselowski is the only former series champion in the free-agent pool and the Coca-Cola 600 was the 31st win of his career – tied for 26th on the all-time list.
“We’ve got a race win at a major on a team that’s really just starting to click together,” Keselowski said. “This team has a lot of potential.
“I hope that I get to take and make something of that for years to come. But it’s not all up to me. A lot of things have to come together, whether it’s sponsors or whatnot, management things.”
Johnson suffers two setbacks
Johnson twice raced for the lead at Charlotte, including on the overtime restart when he lined up next to Keselowski. He came up short both times as the seven-time NASCAR champion failed to snap a winless streak that dates to Dover in June 2017.
Johnson is retiring from full-time competition at the end of the season and he wound up crossing the finish line second in what was likely his final CocaCola 600.
The next blow came two hours after the race when NASCAR said his Chevrolet failed post-race inspection.
Crew chief Cliff Daniels thought the car not meeting rear alignment measurements after the race could be attributed to a broken part; NASCAR said it has built-in tolerances “for parts that move. But if parts break, the number is the number.”
Hamlin crew loses three
Joe Gibbs Racing said it would not appeal the penalty issued Monday afternoon for the ballast that got away from Hamlin’s car.
The tungsten is required to meet minimum weight requirements on the car and the NASCAR rule book states if it is separated at any point it is an automatic four-race suspension for the crew chief, car chief and engineer. Chris Gabehart, the crew chief, was suspended along with car chief Brandon Griffeth and engineer Scott Simmons.
Sam McAulay will be the crew chief, while Eric Phillips will be car chief and Scott Eldridge the engineer Wednesday night at Charlotte.
NASCAR’s next four races are at Charlotte, Bristol, Atlanta and Martinsville between Wednesday night and June 10, when the suspension ends. NASCAR is trying to squeeze in eight postponed Cup events.