At Sunday’s Daytona 500, Brad Keselowski, who dominated most laps, recalled the time when his strategy for winning NASCAR’s Cup showpiece race as a team owner/driver “fell apart.”
Keselowski and Chris Buescher, who race in the same RFK Racing Ford squad, led a remarkable 74 of the 212 laps, with Keselowski taking the lead on 42 of them. Keselowski also took first place in the stage.
With four circuits to go, though, they were unable to maintain their lead over the pack as Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon of the Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet pushed through their Mustangs in a drafting move.
Buescher, Keselowski, and William Byron teamed together to push Dillon into a spin as the race entered overtime after a late yellow, resulting in a multi-car collision and forcing the race into a second green-white-checker attempt.
Both Buescher and Keselowski had to stop for fuel. Keselowski was involved in the last-lap collision and was ranked 22nd, while Buescher escaped the mess and finished in fourth.
“That’s the thing about [restrictor] plate racing, you make all these plans,” said Keselowski on FOX’s RaceHub show on Tuesday. “And you know what they say about plans: If you make plans, that’s how you make God laugh. Everything just fell apart really quickly.
“The 8 car [Busch] did a great job working with the 3 [Dillon] to get outside of us and I was still thinking we were going to be OK, then we had that spin with just a few laps to go.
“Overall, a really strong showing for us at RFK, we had two great cars, Chris and I led a bunch of laps, and I thought we did a really good job of controlling the race. I just wish we coulda controlled the finish.
“But it was nice to come out of there in the top 10 in points [thanks to his stage victory], for sure.”
Just after race, Dillon had blamed Keselowski directly for starting the race’s last collision.
“The 6 car [Keselowski] just drove through the 24 [Byron], and that is just what he does,” said Dillon. “His car is just good enough to where he can just drive through who he needs to and push them out of the way, or wreck them. That is the desperation that they are in right now.”
“I got into the 3 and we just got off center somehow and I wrecked him. Once he got off center, I tried to back up but I had the 6 in the back of me trying to push as well. That was unfortunate,” Byron claimed in regard to the collision.
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Nascar, NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity, Daytona 500, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher, RFK, Roush Fenway Racing