Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Keselowski breaks Daytona jinx
Driver gets first win on track, fends off Kyle Busch at flag
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Brad Keselowski had his confidence shaken at Daytona International Speedway more than once.
He was a good plate racer, but never could find his way to Victory Lane at NASCAR’s most famous track.
That changed Saturday night with a dominating performance that gave Team Penske its 100th career Sprint Cup Series victory — a win Roger Penske celebrated by participating in the traditional champagne spray.
More important, it gave Keselowski his long-awaited first win at Daytona.
Keselowski led a race-high 115 laps, then held off Las Vegas native Kyle Busch on a two-lap shootout that sent the race into overtime for one additional lap. It gave him his fifth career Cup win in a restrictor-plate race, but all the others had come at Talladega. He won on the Alabama track most recently in May.
“I don’t care if it’s not the 500. It’s Daytona. This is huge,” he said after claiming the Coke Zero 400. “I love this place.”
He loved it even when he came up frustratingly short, or not even close at all.
Keselowski said his futility at Daytona was “a kick in the you-knowwhat,” but he and his No. 2 Ford crew kept chipping away at it even after he had a disappointing run in the season-opening Daytona 500.
“I got down on myself here,” he said. “We came down here for the 500 and quite honestly we ran like dog crap, but my team worked on it. I didn’t give up on them. I believe in my team and my team believes in me and we went to work and we put together a better car, and it really showed with a great effort from the whole team. I’m really proud of everybody.”
The race was marred by a 22-car accident that collected more than half the field and thinned the competition for Keselowski. It really only left Kyle Busch as a legitimate contender, but a restart for a two-lap shootout that sent it into overtime forced Keselowski to earn the win.
He easily held off Busch, and challenger Kurt Busch — Kyle’s older brother — was eliminated when he was knocked out of line by Joey Logano as they headed to the checkered flag.
“I don’t remember a whole lot. It gets kind of crazy,” said Kyle Busch, who crashed his primary car Friday morning and raced in a backup.
“You just tried to play it as safe as you could but as smart as you could, and being as aggressive as you could without trying to tear up any cars. If we could have got the 2-car out of there, it probably would have been a decent race, but that thing was just so strong that there wasn’t much passing him.
“Really it took a lot of guys ganging up and getting together in order to make a move on him. He was pretty smart about where he positioned his car on the racetrack, and I could see that, and I tried to do some of those same things, but man, it just never really worked for me as good as he could handle it.”
Trevor Bayne finished third and was followed by Keselowski teammate Logano and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as Ford drivers took four of the top five spots.
Kurt Busch was briefly charging toward Keselowski on the final shootout, couldn’t pull off a pass, then found himself turned into the grass when Logano hit him. It took him from a possible top-five finish to 23rd, and he called Logano’s move “an aggressive mistake.”
“I don’t know where Logano wanted to go. He was going to go from fifth to first?” Busch said. “There’s not a chance that he had enough to win it. We positioned ourselves to be the car to get a run off the bottom. And it just didn’t work out with him trying to drive straight through us.”
Busch’s crew chief had much stronger words for Logano.
“Stupid is as stupid does!!!” tweeted Tony Gibson.
Tony Stewart, seeking his fifth victory in his final race at Daytona, was in contention until a late accident. He finished 26th.