Keselowski grinds out top five on ‘so-so day’ – Nascar

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LOUDON, N.H. — As one of the resident wizards of the “Magic Mile” over the past five years, it was a little curious to see Brad Keselowski — who sports a 6.27 average finish at the track since the fall race of 2011 – come out a little flat in Sunday’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
 
For his latest trick, the Team Penske driver entered the top 10 for good at Lap 270 of 300 and continued to rise from there, sticking the landing with a fourth-place finish that was nearly a third, save for a late pass from Kyle Busch.
 
“We caught a couple breaks on the restarts that helped out. Pleasantly surprised (at how this race turned out),” Keselowski said on pit road following the race. ” … It was just a good call there towards the end to put tires on and then just being smooth and keeping it in one piece driving through traffic. … Sometimes you catch some good breaks in this sport. … It was just a really great finish to kind of just a so-so day.”
 
While the recovery portends well for Keselowski’s hopes of advancing into the Round of 12, the speed that his car lacked at New Hampshire should be of some concern for the 2 team as the Chase continues.
 
The 2012 champ pins it on this week’s rules update for post-race inspection that eliminated P2 and P3-level penalties for infractions resulting from the laser inspection system.
 
“I think that rules change at the last minute was certainly not very favorable to our team,” said Keselowski, in search of his first win since early July at Kentucky. “We’ve got to work to find a little more speed for sure.”
 
The No. 2 crew chief, Paul Wolfe, pins the lack of performance on a swing-and-a-miss setup after they couldn’t quite nail down what they were looking for in Saturday’s practice sessions.
 
“The car never drove like what we’ve had here in the past. We were kind of on the fence about where we wanted to be today as far as set-up wise. There were a couple things we went through in practice yesterday and we picked a direction that obviously wasn’t good,” Wolfe told NASCAR.com.

“So we just really struggled to get any speed out of the car all day. Just tried to stay calm, get what we could and not get in trouble. Brad was doing a good job of that. There at the end, the position we were in I felt it was worth putting tires on it and it was really the new tires and a couple of good restarts that got us to the front.
 
“Definitely not the performance or the speed in the car that we were hoping for today, but we were able to get a good finish out of it and at this point of the Chase, that’s obviously the important part.”
 
Keselowski now heads to the Dover International Speedway with a little more of a cushion — he’s the overall points leader, though second and sixth-place (in the point standings) drivers Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick, respectively, have clinched their Round of 12 berths — than it looked like he’d have for most of the race, and should be a lock to advance save for a major, catastrophic mishap.
 
“It feels good to go to Dover and be able to sleep easy knowing that if you have a part failure or get caught up in a wreck or any of those silly things that can happen that aren’t you fault, you don’t have to worry about them so that’s good,” he said.
 
“But we still have some work to do to get a little faster.”