News

THE RACE

The STP Gas Booster 500 at Martinsville Speedway (.0.526-mile oval, Ridgeway, Va.)
Sunday, April 7, 2013

THE RESULTS

No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion driven by Brad Keselowski

Starting Position: 7
Finishing Position: 6
Status: Running
Current Championship Position: 2

THE RACE REVIEW

· Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion team started the race from the seventh position after posting a qualifying lap of 19.307 seconds around the flat, half-mile oval.

· Keselowski lost several positions following the green flag as the Miller Lite Ford was handling loose entering the tight Martinsville corners and it also lacked forward drive coming off the turns.

· By lap 215, Keselowski had raced his way back inside the top 10 as the adjustments by crew chief Paul Wolfe and the team began to turn the handling of the car around.

· After maintaining his position inside the top 10 for the majority of the race, Keselowski pulled into his pit stall at lap 451 for his penultimate stop of the day. A NASCAR pit lane official noted that Keselowski had the right front tire of the Miller Lite Ford outside the pit stall. After being pushed back into the correct position, Keselowski lost several spots before the race resumed at lap 459. Fortunately for the team, it didn’t play a role in the outcome of their race.

· Keselowski drove with determination over the final laps of the race to log his fifth top-10 finish in the first six races of the year.

· The result marked the second-consecutive sixth-place finish for Keselowski at Martinsville. It helped him maintain second-place in the series standings, just six points behind race winner Jimmie Johnson.
    
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING

“We seem to run sixth here every time.  Sixth is good, but it’s just not great.  We want to be able to win here and just haven’t been strong enough to do that.  We’ve been strong enough to be proud of what we’ve done, and I’m proud of where we are right here today, but the 48 car is on another level.  His car is so much better than everybody else that he just plays with everybody the whole race just to make it look good.  That’s pretty obvious, but I feel like if we can get our Miller Lite Ford Fusion where he is, I can beat him.”  – Brad Keselowski on his second-consecutive sixth-place finish at Martinsville Speedway

“It was just a matter of how hard I wanted to work him over.  There’s a proper amount to work somebody over for a win and a proper amount to work somebody over for a fifth or a sixth.  I worked him enough to feel proud about it.”– Brad Keselowski on his battle with the No. 18 car of Kyle Busch over the final laps of the race.