Brad Keselowski’s adventurous day up and down the running order ended with a second-place finish in the Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Starting the day 17th, Keselowski demonstrated the strength of his car early, going from 14th to eighth in one lap on the lap 55 restart and worked his way into a fifth-place finish at the end of the first stage.
He dropped back through the field after electing to pit under the fifth caution of the race on lap 97, but drove from 24th to fifth in just 10 laps on the ensuing restart.
On lap 120, however, he made an unscheduled stop for a loose left-rear wheel. Adding insult to injury, he was handed a pass through penalty for driving through too many pit boxes. He rejoined the race in 35th, two laps down.
He elected to take a wave around under the following two cautions to put himself back on the lead lap. He slowly worked his way back into the top-10.
Keselowski was fourth on the final restart. He was still fourth coming to the white flag. But going into Turn 1, he drove to the outside of Ryan Blaney and Kevin Harvick and drove on to finish second.
“Well, so much happened, I’m not sure I even know,” Keselowski said of the final restart in his post-race media availability. “But we were really good all day and just never had a chance to show it. Every time we started to pass cars and cycle up to the front, we had some kind of issue, which was a real bummer to not be able to showcase the strength that we had. Towards the end we were able to get some runs and make the most of it, and I think we went from probably 20th with 100 to go to second, which was a pretty big climb in the sport. That’s something to be proud of, but I kind of feel like I would have liked to have seen if it would have just played out normal, and I think we might have had a shot at him (Martin Truex Jr.).”
Keselowski leaves Kansas third in points, 67 behind points leader Kyle Larson.
