For the second week in a row, a Nascar Sprint Cup Series race came down to fuel mileage. For the second week in a row, Dale Earnhardt, Jr came within laps of snapping his 105 race winless drought. And for the second week in a row, a totally unexpected team pulled into victory lane.
After a very mild, uneventful STP 400, Brad Keselowski stretched his fuel mileage and pulled the Miller Lite "Blue Deuce" into victory lane for the first time since teammate Kurt Busch won last seasons Coke 600. But to do it, Keselowski had to beat former teammate and owner Dale Earnhadt, Jr. This is also Brad's first win for Penske Racing.
Brad's teammate, Kurt Busch brought the field to the green flag and dominated most of the race. This was a far cry from the Kurt Busch who has struggled mostly all of this season, cussing out his pit crew and calling out and insulting members of the Penske Racing management team by name and yelling about how none of the aforementioned team members can do their jobs right. But the #22 AAA Dodge led several laps and looked to be on track to turn the Penske organization's nightmare season around.
As the race progressed, there were very few wrecks and even fewer passes. The race was also beginning to look more like a fuel mileage race than a regular dash to the checkered flag. That's exactly how it worked out. The teams that had been out front, like Busch's #22, Tony Stewart's #14 and Carl Edward's #99 were all forced to pit road, while Keselowski, Dale Jr and Denny Hamlin were trying to stretch the Sunoco E-85 ethanol in their tanks to lap 267.
Junior's crew chief Steve Letarte instructed his driver to just pass Hamlin and race him. Keselowski was going to run out anyway. Right? What the #88's head wrench didn't know was that Brad's #2 Dodge was only about 3/4 of a lap short on gas. So saving that little amount of fuel was easy. Then, with about five laps to go, Junior was told to start saving again, eliminating any chance he had at catching the #2. This pretty much sealed the deal and netted Brad Keselowski his second Sprint Cup win. While the Miller Lite team celebrated in victory lane, Earnhardt, Jr walked down pit road, looking a lot more peeved than he did last weekend. It was almost as if he knew he should have won this race. Second place is, after all, just the first loser.
Keselowski and Junior will both get another shot to win this weekend as the Sprint Cup action heads to the "Tricky Triangle" of Pocono Raceway. Denny Hamlin has been untouchable there for several years now. Will Brad Keselowski repeat? Will Junior finally score his first win in over 100 races? Or will Denny Hamlin continue his stranglehold on the field at Pocono? We'll have to wait until 400 miles of racing around the tri corner racetrack in the Poconos to find out.
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