While one winless streak ends with Chase Elliott conquering his 42-race winless streak, Brad Keselowski‘s grows one more race.
Despite having the fresher tires for the multitude of late race restarts, Keselowski ultimately finished second.
Keselowski started the race 22nd, and in the first stage felt like a non-factor. However, the handling of the Next Gen car on the slick/bumpy corners of Texas Motor Speedway caused many crashes and spins from various drivers throughout the field. There were 16 cautions, tying the Texas record and breaking the record in a 400-mile race at a 1.5-mile track.
After running no higher than 18th for the first 138 laps, Keselowski and crew chief Matt McCall made the call to stay out for the remainder of stage two. The strategy call paid off for the No. 6 team, taking sixth place in stage two.
After pitting for stage three, the No. 6 methodically worked his way back to the front on the second-longest 45-lap green flag run where he battled his way to second.
“There was definitely some fall off, not a ton,” Keselowski said. “These Next Gen cars are really hard on the right rear tires and when they would wear out, you’d see some guys really lose control of the cars.”
Keselowski was hoping for a caution to allow him to take advantage of fresher tires than the leaders who had pitted. Luckily for Keselowski, that’s exactly what he got in the form of John Hunter Nemechek slamming the turn 3 wall.
With the caution trapping many one lap down, this allowed Keselowski to restart 10th, and the owner of RFK Racing wasted no time climbing to third behind the leader Denny Hamlin and Elliott.
However his advantage would start to fade once he got in the wake of Elliott, and it would have to take another caution to allow the No. 6 Ford Mustang to have a chance.
Keselowski would get much more than that: four cautions to end the race and set up a double overtime finish.
Hamlin would spin battling with Elliott for the lead off of turn four, but Ross Chastain got by Keselowski to inherit the outside front row for the final two restarts.
Haplessly, Keselowski could only manage to push Elliott on the bottom, unable to make a move into turn one. And it was Elliott, not Keselowski, who would break his winless streak, while Keselowski would avoid the wrecking Chastain to obtain runner-up.
“Proud of the team that we have the pit stops and the strategy and execution to put…
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