Brad Keselowski led a race-high 102 at Richmond Raceway as RKF Racing dominated the day, but he wasn’t the one celebrating for the company at the end of the Cook Out 400.
It is of no matter to Keselowski. After winning the second stage, Keselowski fell back into traffic and out of contention as teammate Chris Buescher leapfrogged him on pit strategy when the No. 17 team pitted a lap sooner than Keselowski’s No. 6. And on Keselowski’s pit stop, which came just past the lap 280 mark, he awkwardly parked in his pit stall and threw off his crew.
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“I just got in a little too hard and a little too wide and locked up the right front,” Keselowski said.
But neither instance is why Keselowski felt he didn’t get to victory lane.
“I’d struggle to give a great answer on how big a difference that would make until I’ve seen all the information,” Keselowski said of Buescher pitting before him. “But certainly, Chris was very fast, and when we got back out on the track, I got passed by two or three cars. I was just trying to hold on there for a little bit, and car handling got away from me a little bit. Not exactly sure why. We’ll go back and take a look at that.”
Even with the hiccup on the pit stop, Keselowski didn’t fall from inside the top 10, but struggled to regain the lost track position and get back to his teammate. With 20 laps to go, Keselowski was running sixth.
A caution on lap 391 brought the field to pit road one last time. Keselowski left where he enteredm and chose to line up third in the outside lane on the restart. But sixth is all Keselowski could manage.
“You never lose hope (of getting back through the field),” Keselowski said. “We ran really hard to try to get back in the top five and just wasn’t really able to push back through. I was kind of stuck sixth or seventh, I think, for the remainder of the race with some guys probably in front of us that were staying out. But just couldn’t quite get back by some of those guys.
“I think I passed the 23 (Bubba Wallace), but the 8 (Kyle Busch) passed me and kind of drove away. Just couldn’t make that next step. So just lost the handling there a little bit. Not entirely sure why, but that’s part of it.”
Keselowski and Buescher combined to lead 190 of 400 laps. Sunday was the second victory for the organization in the last 10 months after Buescher’s triumph in the fall race at Bristol Motor Speedway. It was a race where the two RFK Racing cars were just as equally matched, leading 278 of 500 laps.
“Obviously, I want to win the race as a driver and that’s super important to me,” Keselowski said. “Bristol honestly stung a lot more than this did because it was out of our control where we blew a tire. Here I think there were some things that were in my control and our control as a team. I wasn’t flawless today. So, there’s a little bit of work to do there on my end.
“So, I don’t think it stings so much the way Bristol did, but in both cases, we had two good cars, and we were able to strike with the 17 car. That’s something to be proud of.”