For Keselowski, the only negative lasting effect from the race – which was unexpectedly dominated by tire wear and tire management strategy – was smoldering remains of tire burning on his No. 6 Ford when the race ended.
Like many, Keselowski was pushing his tires to the limit on the final roughly 50-lap run after a round of green flag pit stops. He managed to remain one of the five cars on the lead lap and captured a season’s best third place finish.
“We just kind of ran top five pretty much the whole race and kept them honest. I got ran into on one of those pit caution cycles. That did a little damage to the front end, otherwise I think I could have had a shot to win it today, but still solid to come home third,” Keselowski said.
“It was an interesting day. There was a lot of discipline required and it was a fun race, to be honest, because you just had to be so smart behind the wheel.
“It would bite you in a heartbeat and you had to have a good set-up. I think we had a good set-up and tried to run the smartest race I could.”
Sunday’s race turned out to be a completely different affair with tires than last fall. Although Goodyear brought the same tire combination to this race, the tire fall-off laid no rubber on the track, which resulted in unusually excessive tire wear.
Midway through the race, NASCAR allowed Goodyear to provide teams with one additional set of tires but with many teams only able to go between 47-50 laps before developing problems, that big changes to the pace of the race and pit strategy.
Veterans rising to the top
That recipe tended to favor the sport’s most veteran drivers, who not coincidently, finished 1-2-3 with Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. ahead of Keselowski.
“It’s hard. I just wish the whole race would have been like the end where we just ran and we didn’t throw yellows because we were in a really good spot for that, but, either way, we had a good car.
“We ran really solid and came away with a great finish and a ton of points. It’s the kind of weekend where we feel like we can come back here in the fall and win.”
Keselowski said it had been quite some time since he remembered tire conversation playing as big a role in a race as it did on Sunday.
Asked if he would like to see more races like that, he said, “I thought it was fun. It’s different. Variety is the spice of life.”
