Keselowski wins Charlotte Nationwide race

Keselowski celebrates

Mike Mercurio/AR1.com

Brad Keselowski rebounded from an early tire issue to score his fourth NASCAR Nationwide win of the season in Friday night's Drive For The Cure 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Keselowski passed his teammate Ryan Blaney with 13 laps to go and sailed to the finish ahead of fellow Sprint Cup drivers Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth for his 31st Nationwide Series win and his ninth-straight top five finish in his nine starts so far this season.

Blaney held on for fourth, followed by Kyle Larson.

Keselowski overcame an early tire problem after cutting down a tire on lap 55 and scraping the wall, forcing him down a lap. Keselowski's team managed to get him back out and back on the lead lap back into the top 10 by lap 73.

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Tire problems were a major issue in the early stages of the race for several of the top contenders had tire problems early, including championship points leader Chase Elliott and second-place points driver Regan Smith.

"I told Jeremy (Bullins, crew chief) that I thought we were playing prevent defense early in the race," said Keselowski. "Everybody was waiting to see who was going to blow the next tire.

"It was a night of adversity to start. We didn't quite qualify the way we wanted too…then we lost a tire and hit the wall and thought this was going to be a real downward spiral. Jeremy and the crew – my hats off to them – they got us back in it with good strategy and can-do attitude, got our laps back and got back in it."

Friday night's event got off to a shaky start before a single lap was completed with an 11-car crash breaking out at the start/finish line right at the drop of the green flag, collecting Jeffrey Earnhardt, J.J. Yeley and Tanner Berryhill, among others.

Keselowski is now fifth on the all-time Nationwide Series wins list with 31.

By far the biggest wreck of the night occurred on lap 76, with a six-car pileup that claimed championship contender Ty Dillon, relegating him to a 30th-place finish and all but ending his championship hopes.

As teams struggled over tire wear, tires played a different role in the last half of the race, as several teams gambled on pit road with two-tire and no-tire stops to gain track position.

Blaney was one of the drivers to roll the dice on the last round of pit stops with 30 laps to go, taking just two tires to move up from ninth to second behind Brendan Gaughan – who also gambled on two tires – while Keselowski, Busch and Kenseth all took four tires.

It didn't take long for the strategy to backfire, as Gaughan quickly fell back through the field and nearly hit wall as Larson moved around him on the high side with a four-wide pass to take over the third spot.

Gaughan would fall all the way out of the top five, eventually getting caught up in a three-car wreck with Ross Chastain and Corey LaJoie that brought out the final caution with 23 laps to go.

On the restart, Blaney managed to hold off a side-by-side charge by Keselowski to hold onto the lead, but with 13 laps to go Blaney got loose coming off turn two and Keselowski moved past on the high side to take over the top spot.

Busch also got past Blaney for second and began tracking down Keselowski, but wasn't able to make up much ground in the final 10 laps.

"They were faster than us tonight," said Busch. "Just knew that with about 60 (laps) to go that we had a tire advantage over them and that was going to be the way for us to win the race. But, bizarre cautions always ruin those things for you."

Elliott, the Nationwide points leader, started off on the pole and led a race-high 66 laps, but struggled after taking on just two tires following a pit stop on lap 139 and fell to an eighth-place finish, but managed to hold onto the points lead by 42 over his teammate Regan Smith, who finished 11th.

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