Keselowski finishes 4th at Talladega; advances to 3rd in standings

Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T powered to a fourth-place finish in today’s Good Sam Club 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. The top-five finish was the best for any of the 12 drivers in the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup and it bumped Keselowski up three positions to third in the Sprint Cup driver standings. He’s definitely in contention for the championship; he’s just 18 points behind leader Carl Edwards, with three races remaining in the Chase.

“It was interesting the whole race,” Keselowski told reporters. “Our Miller Lite Dodge was fast all day. I worked really hard with Dave Blaney (No. 36 Golden Corral Chevrolet, finished third) all day. He was a great, great helper and I owe a lot of credit to him. We stayed smart and brought it up front at the end.”

“Crazy,” Keselowski said about the final laps. “I told the guys in the spotter’s stand that Dave Blaney and I had this, they could walk downstairs and grab ‘em a Miller Lite ‘cause there was nothing you could do for us once they dropped the green. My team, they gave me the car. It just came down to teamwork with Dave at the end. I want to say thank-you to Dave Blaney and his whole team. It all came together there at the end. This is exactly how we needed to leave Talladega, with a strong finish, gained points on the leader, gained points on really all the Chase cars. I’m very proud of the effort, proud to have a good day and very fortunate to have missed all the wrecks today. It must have had something to do with in-memory of Dan (Wheldon) on the back of the car. It was a great day for us and I just want to say a shout-out to him and his family.”

Commenting on the wild finish, Keselowski said, “Just a typical wild Talladega finish. You know, I was pushing Dave Blaney and I couldn’t see that there were two cars in front of him until we got to the start-finish line. I thought for a second we were going to run one-two; that was going to be a lot of fun. Dave did a great job today. It was a pleasure working with him and his team and we brought home a solid day for the Blue Deuce. This is what we need to do. We needed to have a strong run here. We put ourselves in contention and you know the fates didn’t smile on us, but we still got a great finish out of it and I’m proud of my team.”

Kurt Busch was credited with a 36th-place finish after a collision with Bobby Labonte’s spinning No. 47 Scott Products Toyota took the 22 Shell/Pennzoil Charger out of the race. The accident dropped Busch to eighth in the standings and just about out of any hope for the championship.

“We were doing good all day, running with Regan Smith, and just had nowhere to go,” Busch said later. “The 47 go flung by Michael Waltrip, he went low, we went high, and he was starting to come back up when I was zigging and zagging. Our championship hopes are done just because of this two-car Talladega draft.”

Robby Gordon and the No. 7 Speed Energy Dodge finished 37th: the Charger had rear gear trouble and had to retire after 173 laps of the 188-lap race.

“What a bummer,” Gordon said. “I thought this might be the day that we get this SPEED Energy Dodge in victory lane. We had a great car. We ended up having a problem with the rear gear, started to leak some oil on the track and NASCAR made us park the car. It’s a bummer. It may have happened when we lost the rear bumper cover and that could have caused a weird vacuum under the car. We’re really not sure. Our car was fast. We led laps. We ran great with Trevor (Bayne) all day. It just wasn’t meant to be.”