Brad Keselowski scores his second straight top-five finish with a third at Bristol. (Photo: Josh James | The Podium Finish).
BRISTOL, Tenn. — As the late Barney Hall once said during pre-race notes in EA Sports’ NASCAR Thunder games, “tires, tires and more tires.” Tire conservation was critical for a strong afternoon in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, favoring the long tenured veterans such as Brad Keselowski.
Fresh off a fourth-place finish in last Sunday’s rather lackluster race at Phoenix, Keselowski partook in arguably the most competitive yet chaotic race in terms of tire wear of his NASCAR Cup Series career.
Many younger drivers who had raced in pro late models over the years and were accustomed to tire conservation ran fiercely and had the advantage for much of the 500-lap race. Towards the end of the race, however, the short track-background racers waned like their Goodyear tires as the tenacious and crafted veterans rose up to the occasion and swept the top-three, including Keselowski.
“It was a pretty good day for us with RFK and the 6 car here. We just kind of ran top-five pretty much the whole race and kept them honest. I got ran into on one of those pit caution cycles,” said Keselowski. “That did a little damage to the front end, otherwise I think I could have had a shot to win it today, but still solid to come home third. It was a really good week.”
After taking the checkered flag, Keselowski’s No. 6 King’s Hawaiian Ford Mustang Dark Horse began feeling dark under the hood as fire was beginning to build up. Fortunately, nothing costly occurred and the issue was quickly taken care of.
“I just wanted to make sure the car wasn’t gonna burn down,” said Keselowski on the matter. “That’s happened before and it’s real expensive. They came and put the fire out, so it’s fine.”
On one hand, some drivers, teams and even Goodyear personnel were dissatisfied by the extreme tire wear. Kyle Larson was one driver who hoped a race with this kind of tire fall-off never happened again.
On the other hand, fans, racers, pundits and even higher-ups enjoyed the show as it was a refreshing style of racing. Race winner Denny Hamlin felt the race really came down to the drivers, as it showcased a Bristol and short track record 54 lead changes among 16 different drivers.
Matt McCall enjoyed today. It reminded him of his days racing Late Model Stocks and he says it helps to enjoy days like this when he has a driver who is good at saving like Brad Keselowski is. pic.twitter.com/cvkUC1dfpw
— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverRA) March 18, 2024
Keselowski only led a single lap but was among the individuals who saw a bright side of the grueling 500-lap odyssey that, in spite of its severe tire wear, only saw nine caution periods.
“It was interesting. Like a little short track race,” said Keselowski. “You go to any of these local short tracks, that’s how you have to race. Have to take care of your stuff.”
More importantly, it was a rather fun and challenging race for Keselowski, who had his share of chaos on and off pit road that set him back for a period of time. However, the 2012 champion was able to recover nicely and looked forward to coming back to Bristol in September with the goal of finishing two spots better than he did on Sunday.
“It’s refreshing. It’s different,” Keselowski commented. “I like that, that it takes something different every week. That’s what makes Cup so hard. You go in every week, some weeks you drive ’em till you burn ’em down, this week you got to take care of ’em.
“It was fun. We had a really good car. We got a little damage on pit road, otherwise I feel like we were able to compete with the 11 (Hamlin) and 19 (Martin Truex Jr.). Took just a tick of speed out of our car. Really looking forward to coming back here in the fall and proud of our race today.”
Tire management was paramount at Bristol as Keselowski was pleased with the challenge he dealt with all race long. (Photo: Josh James | The Podium Finish)
If there was a critical comment Keselowski mentioned during the post-race, it was how he had wished the entire race was like the final 121 laps. Tire wear really picked up as drivers gradually gained or lost ground in the closing laps. Only the top-five drivers finished on the lead lap, which was something that had not happened at a Cup race since the spring 2004 race at Dover.
“There was a lot of discipline required and it was a fun race, to be honest, because you just had to be so smart behind the wheel,” said Keselowski. “It would bite you in a heartbeat and you had to have a good setup. I think we had a good setup and tried to run the smartest race I could.
Additionally, Keselowski remarked how difficult it was to police his No. 6 machine knowing that, as much as his car was strong, pushing it any harder would have resulted in coming to pit road when the odds of not having a fresh set of tires were fairly high. In the case of the final green flag run, Goodyear only provided one extra set of tires and that was the hard cut.
“It’s hard,” said Keselowski. “I just wish the whole race would have been like the end where we just ran and we didn’t throw yellows because we were in a really good spot for that, but, either way, we had a good car.
“We ran really solid and came away with a great finish and a ton of points. It’s the kind of weekend where we feel like we can come back here in the fall and win.”
Brad Keselowski battling with Christopher Bell at Bristol (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish).
After being taken out in accidents at the superspeedways to kick off 2024, Keselowski has slowly picked up the pieces and begun racking up valuable points. As a result of the quick turnaround, Keselowski heads to Circuit of the Americas 13th in the regular season standings after being outside the top-30 earlier this month.
