Keselowski and Team Penske Power to win at ‘Dega

Brad Keselowski

Brad Keselowski lived to race another day as he took the checkered flag in a thrilling three-lap overtime finish in Sunday's GEICO 500 at Talladega Speedway to advance to the next round of the championship battle in the final event of the three-race Contender Round in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Keselowski held off a furious charge from Ryan Newman during a final green-white-checkered shootout then pulled head to win out over his nemesis Matt Kenseth to collect his 16th-career victory and punch his ticket to the next round in the Chase.

Clint Bowyer came home third, followed by Landon Cassill and Newman.

Keselowski joined his fellow Team Penske teammate Joey Logano and last week's winner Kevin Harvick in the Eliminator Round, along with Kenseth, Newman, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin.

Defending series champion Jimmie Johnson was eliminated from the Chase, along with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Kasey Kahne. Kyle Busch also failed to advance after getting caught up in a wreck early in the race.

Winner Brad Keselowski is presented the winning trophy by race Grand Marshal Rhett Rayburn, VP & Chartered Property Underwriter, GEICO Macon Southeast

Keselowski's victory was his sixth of the season and gives Team Penske a combined 11 wins on the season – the most in team history.

"I can't believe we won at Talladega," said Keselowski. "This race is the scariest of the three in the bracket. Talladega is such a wild card and to be able to win here you have to catch breaks and make your own breaks, a little of both. To be able to win here is really a privilege, it really is."

Sunday's win came just one week after Keselowski posted a disappointing 16th-place finish at Charlotte that culminated in a post-race brawl with Kenseth that earned him a $50,000 fine handed down by NASCAR.

Ironically, it was Kenseth who drafted Keselowski through the final turn, giving the 2012 championship the momentum to get past Newman on his way to the checkered flag.

"I got a chuckle out of that personally," said Keselowski. "But to me it was funny how this racing world works out. I don't know why it is that way. I don't know why it seems like every week where there's either a fight in the garage or a mishap or something like that happens, those two cars and people end up together, whether it was our cars were parked together in the garage area, or on the racetrack for the win in the closing laps at Talladega. I don't know why that happens.

With his Charlotte finish and his 36th-place showing at Kansas Speedway, Keselowski was on the outside looking in, 19 points out of eighth place and 10th in the standings ahead of Johnson and Earnhardt, Jr., – all of whom came into Sunday's race needing nothing less than a win to have any chance of keeping their championship hopes alive.

The threat of elimination turned Talladega's normal white-knuckle restrictor-plate racing into an all-or-nothing Hail Mary, and at the end of the game it was Keselowski standing alone in the end zone – ball in hand.

Keselowski kept his car near the front of the pack all day and was running second behind Newman when the caution flag waved with four to go to set up a green-white-checker finish.

On the restart, Keselowski managed to just pull ahead of Newman on the backstretch when the caution waved again for a multi-car crash involving Earnhardt, Jr., which ultimately ended Junior's title hopes.

Back under green for the second three-lap dash, Keselowski got a push from Logano on the high side to pull ahead of Newman, allowing Keselowski and Logano to pull ahead, but Newman came roaring back with help from teammate Kevin Harvick, pulling even with Keselowski as they came to the white flag.

Knowing he needed to do whatever he had to do to win the race, Keselowski climbed the banking in turn two to block, cutting Newman's momentum just enough to inch ahead before finally ducking back down to the low side in front of Kenseth, who trailed Keselowski to the finish line.

Touchdown.

"I love when a plan comes together," said Keselowski. "Everything just felt right today.

"The great thing about this type of format is that at any given point, we knew if we came here and won, it didn't matter what happened at Charlotte, didn't matter what happened at Kansas with the blown tire. None of that stuff mattered. There's always a way out with this format, which is something I can personally take as a point of pride and a method for justifying the mental capacity to move on and look forward."

The driver who fell hardest on Sunday was no doubt Kyle Busch, who went from second in the points standings to being eliminated from the Chase after falling victim to the race's first multi-car crash of the day on lap 61.

After 49 laps behind the wall, Busch managed to make it back onto the track and at one point was tied with Kasey Kahne for the final transfer spot, but came up four points short of topping Kahne – who himself was bumped out of the top eight by Keselowski.

For Johnson, he came out on the losing end despite leading a race-high 84 laps and restarting third during the first green-white-checker, but got shuffled back to eventually finish 24th and wind up 37 points out of eighth place – joining Earnhardt, Jr., who finished 31st and ended the day 12th in points.

"Disappointed we didn't advance, but truthfully the way the last two races went, today was an opportunity for us, and we were kind of playing with house money and just didn't get it done," said Johnson. "It's so hard to win one of these races. You can't come in here and say you're doing to dominate Talladega and win the race. We dominated it. We just didn't lead the lap that counted.

"At least we went down swinging. I'll take some pride in that."

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