Brad Keselowski celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway (Photo: John Harrelson/Getty Images)
Could there have been a longer shot to win the Aaron’s 499 than Brad Keselowski?
The 25-year-old Michigan native came into Talladega Superspeedway having competed in just four Sprint Cup races previously, never having finished better than 19th place. Even after taking the checkered flag, he’s still only led one lap in his fledgling Cup career – the last one in the Aaron’s 499.
At Talladega, he drove for James Finch’s Phoenix Racing, a part-time Sprint Cup team that had just two top-five finishes in a 104 previous starts. Asked how it felt to win a Sprint Cup, Keselowski was nearly at a loss for words. “Well, I didn't … you just don't know,” he said. “Talladega is such a crapshoot. You can't expect anything. Can't expect to win, can't expect not to win. I knew that I had to get locked into somebody's rear bumper if I was going to run up to the front, and even (then) you don't know if it's going to work out.”
But work out it did, in dramatic fashion. Keselowski was running second to Carl Edwards when the two made contact on the frontstretch during the last lap, which pitched Edwards’s car first onto the hood of third-place Ryan Newman, and then into the grandstand catchfence, where preliminary reports indicate that eight fans suffered minor injuries from flying debris.
Keselowski crossed the start-finish line ahead of his boss in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Newman, Marcos Ambrose and Scott Speed.
Afterwards, Edwards defended how Keselowski played it.
“Brad was doing everything right,” Edwards said. “He was pushing and that’s what you have to do to win. I knew he was gonna try to get around me, I just didn’t realize how much better his car would be when he broke the plane of my rear bumper. … He did everything right. NASCAR puts us in a box. If he drives below the line, he loses the race, so what’s a guy supposed to do? So you end up having to wreck people or having to get second and none of us want to do that.”
Keselowski, too, said his race-winning pass was clean, even if it did result in an accident. “Holding your line was the way to do it, and I'm sorry it caused a wreck and sorry for those that are hurt,” he said. “But that's just the situation with the rules and the way it is, and either way, it was a great show, and I hope the fans had fun with it. This is NASCAR racing at its finest. This was a great show. I really hope everyone enjoyed it, because I had fun. I found myself laughing in the race car halfway through the race, and I hope the fans were cheering and having fun, too.”
