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.

Goodyear tire issues in a NASCAR race? Shocking!

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.

Results

POS CAR # DRIVER START LAPS LED STATUS
1 22 Brad Keselowski 10 200 22 Running
2 54 Kyle Busch 5 200 34 Running
3 20 Matt Kenseth 2 200 52 Running
4 12 Ryan Blaney 19 200 14 Running
5 42 Kyle Larson 6 200 0 Running
6 60 Chris Buescher 13 200 0 Running
7 6 Trevor Bayne 8 200 0 Running
8 9 Chase Elliott 1 200 66 Running
9 11 Elliott Sadler 4 200 0 Running
10 2 Brian Scott 3 200 0 Running
11 7 Regan Smith 22 200 9 Running
12 5 Alex Bowman 7 200 0 Running
13 39 Ryan Sieg 16 200 0 Running
14 31 Dylan Kwasniewski 21 200 0 Running
15 16 Ryan Reed 9 200 0 Running
16 62 Brendan Gaughan 14 200 3 Running
17 01 Landon Cassill 20 200 0 Running
18 19 Mike Bliss 15 200 0 Running
19 43 Dakoda Armstrong 24 200 0 Running
20 10 David Starr 33 200 0 Running
21 80 Ross Chastain 23 200 0 Running
22 51 Jeremy Clements 25 198 0 Running
23 93 Kevin Swindell 37 197 0 Running
24 98 Corey Lajoie 17 175 0 Accident
25 70 Derrike Cope 40 166 0 Running
26 52 Joey Gase 38 165 0 Running
27 55 Jamie Dick 31 161 0 Running
28 84 Chad Boat 26 138 0 Accident
29 23 Carlos Contreras 35 75 0 Accident
30 3 Ty Dillon 11 74 0 Accident
31 99 James Buescher 18 74 0 Accident
32 14 Eric McClure 32 73 0 Accident
33 33 Cale Conley 12 73 0 Accident
34 87 Timmy Hill 39 9 0 Vibration
35 91 Jeff Green 36 8 0 Vibration
36 40 Matt DiBenedetto 34 1 0 Accident
37 17 Tanner Berryhill 30 1 0 Accident
38 44 Will Kimmel III 28 1 0 Accident
39 28 J.J. Yeley 27 0 0 Accident
40 4 Jeffrey Earnhardt 29 0 0 Accident