SYLVANIA 300

Brad Keselowski was on his way to competing for a victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this Sunday. But when NASCAR black-flagged the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion on a late restart, his shot at the win ended.

BK rebounded to finish 12th, and although his career-best streak of 10 straight Top 10 finishes ended at the Sylvania 300, his standing in the Chase for the Sprint Cup actually improved.

“It was a heck of a rebound. I’m really proud of my guys today to come back and finish 12th,” Brad said afterward. “We moved on and got a solid finish that hopefully will make our Dover a little bit easier, so that was good.”

Despite the late setback, BK still finished ahead of numerous Chase contenders. Jamie McMurray, Paul Menard, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Clint Bowyer and Kyle Busch all finished behind Kes. The Team Penske driver sits in eighth in the Chase standings with a 16-point cushion on 13th place.

“It’s very frustrating,” Wolfe said. “We knew this (New Hampshire) was a strength of ours in this round, and to have an opportunity to get a win or a top five would have been huge, and take a little bit of the pressure off going to Dover. Yeah, we recovered to 12th and gained a few points and are not in terrible shape, but at the same time Dover’s been hit or miss for us, so it would have been nice to come out of here with a win or some more points.”

While Brad is in solid standing as the circuit heads to the final race of the Challenger Round, it looked, as Wolfe indicated, like he would be even better off. Kes qualified fourth for the Chase’s second race, and he was in second place behind Harvick, who led 216 of 300 laps before running out of fuel, for almost the entire afternoon.

He held strong in that fourth spot early until the leaders ran into lapped traffic around lap 20. Using that traffic, the No. 2 passed Carl Edwards and lap 24 and sped by Kurt Busch at lap 30 into second place. He set his sights on Harvick and the lead before the race’s first caution arose at lap 36.

The White Lite was one of the strongest machines on the track all afternoon, and crew chief Paul Wolfe fitted it with a slight wedge adjustment to tune it in early. After that and a two-tire stop, Brad was off in second place. He held off Busch and Denny Hamlin to keep second on the restart.

He nearly lost it on the next run after hitting fluid put down by Landon Cassill’s No. 40 car. Fortunately, he held on and kept second place again through restart No. 2 at lap 54. The third in a trio of quick cautions came shortly thereafter at lap 60, and the 2 Crew elected to keep Brad out on the track. He restarted second once again, and once again, he bested Busch and Jimmie Johnson to stay right there.

Finally, another long green-flag run followed. Brad weaved his way through traffic to keep pace with Harvick, as the No. 4 and the No. 2 drivers solidified themselves as the best of the afternoon. Yellow flag No. 4 flew when Alex Bowman hit the wall at lap 120, and the 2 Crew put together a solid 13.0-second four-tire stop to allow Brad to keep second place.

This time on the restart at lap 126, Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave Brad all he could handle, but like others before him, Dale Jr. eventually bowed out, and BK kept that second position. From there, Brad was off to the races. He completed his fastest time of the afternoon to that point at lap 129, traversing the 1.058-mile oval in just 28.686 seconds

That blazing lap time came even after the White Lite shared some contact with Junior’s No. 88 Chevrolet on the restart. As the run went on, it impacted performance a bit, but fortunately, a caution came quickly. At lap 157, Chase hopeful Kyle Busch took a major blow, as his No. 18 Toyota hit the wall to bring out caution No. 5.

While it hurt Busch’s postseason hopes, it allowed the 2 Crew to fix the minor damage and swap out the White Lite’s right-side tires. Brad nearly saw his own postseason hopes take a hit on this stop. He had a near-miss with Casey Mears’ No. 13 car on pit road, and the incident dropped BK to third off pit road. But that bad luck was instantly reversed, when Edwards pulled his gas tank out of his pit box, resulting in a penalty for the No. 19 team, and a P2 restart for the No. 2 team.

This time around, Brad had to best the eventual race winner, Matt Kenseth, on the restart. He did it after a tough battle, and remained in second place until a caution at lap 192 threw off the field’s strategy.

BK and Co. called for four tires, while six drivers—Kenseth, Johnson, Joey Logano, Earnhardt Jr., Bowyer and Tony Stewart—took two. Brad, meanwhile, was the second car on four tires after Harvick. But he made a move on this restart that put him in position to win.

Brad beat out Harvick to take sixth place on the lap 197 restart, making his the first car on four fresh tires. From there, BK made it past Stewart, Johnson and Logano to third place at lap 201, just in time for caution seven, brought out by a wreck involving Danica Patrick at lap 205. Another caution came quickly at lap 211, and Brad pitted for fuel only, his eyes on a fuel mileage win.

Eight drivers elected to stay out, and BK was the first off pit road, putting him in ninth for the restart. He quickly jumped out to sixth after the green flag, and he passed Stewart five laps later to make it back to the Top 5. On this run, Brad moved to fourth and was playing a fuel mileage game with Harvick, who also pitted for fuel on the last stop. Kes was saving while Harvick wasn’t, and this move made a tremendous difference at the end of the race.

Justin Allgaier hit the wall at lap 236, and Brad didn’t pit, sending him to second place for the restart that changed everything. Kes restarted next to Greg Biffle, and after a side-by-side battle, he eventually settled into second place. But while the battle was taking place, NASCAR was reviewing the restart and eventually decided to black flag Brad for a restart violation.

The No. 2 team was more than displeased with NASCAR’s call, which Wolfe explained in detail afterward.

“It depends how you look at it,” Wolfe said. “We did leave the zone, I guess, before the 16 (Biffle) but the 16 looks like he checked up there right at the end. So I don’t know how they’re calling it. No denying we left the zone first, and it looked like we accelerated, but it seemed like right at the same time he checked up, because they were running in the back of him. So that’s the part where it’s frustrating to call that. If they looked at it, you would see the 16 checked up.”