Brad Keselowski sprints to victory, pads Chase points lead

Brad Keselowski didn’t need to talk about how Sunday’s Chase for the Sprint Cup victory at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., made a statement.

His driving, especially in the late going, said it all.

The 30-year-old veteran surged out of a restart to lead the final laps on the way to victory in the MyAFibStory.com 400.

“Today was as much of a statement as you can make on a Week 1,” said Keselowski, who padded his Chase points lead. “I want to enjoy the moment, but I still know there’s nine weeks to go.”

Keselowski sprinted out of a three-wide pack with Kevin Harvick and rookie Kyle Larson to take the lead for good with 15 laps left.

“I saw a hole and I went for it,” he said. “I didn’t know if my car would stick or not, but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t. That got us into the lead.”

He stayed ahead after a final restart and finally put distance on his closest challengers to convincingly beat Jeff Gordon and Larson.

The victory was Keselowski’s fifth this year and second in three seasons on Chicagoland’s 1.5-mile tri-oval. He also secured a berth in the next round of the Chase regardless of how he fares the next two weeks.

Keselowski, who entered the Chase as the top seed, finished 1.76 seconds ahead of Gordon and 2.2 seconds in front of Larson. Joey Logano was fourth and Harvick fifth.

Gordon had early leads and remained among the top four before outdueling Larson for second place and his ninth top-10 finish in 14 Joliet races.

“We had a pretty solid day; we started eighth and were able to drive up into the top two or three fairly early in the race,” Gordon said. “Our car was just solid and that’s the way you want to get this thing started.”

Larson was driving a backup car after a Saturday practice wreck and it proved to be almost fast enough to win.

“We knew from the drop of the green we’d be pretty good,” said Larson, who posted his first top-10 finish in Joliet.

Keselowski, who drives the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford for owner Roger Penske, started 25th but quickly surged into the top 10. He led a series of midrace laps before temporarily slipping back and maneuvered back in front after 255 laps.

He had leads on three occasions covering 62 laps.

“The big thing was Brad staying focused, being patient,” crew chief Paul Wolfe said. “Obviously, he showed that early in the race with having to start 25th. … We [also] had an issue [with a loose wheel] on pit row and got us a little behind. From then on we had pretty good speed in our car all day.”

Keselowski opened a seven-point led over Gordon in the Chase standings heading into Sunday’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Weather was near perfect with temperatures pushing the mid-60s, a far cry from the start of the NASCAR tripleheader weekend when rain washed out much of Friday’s events. Kyle Busch held the pole position in a 43-driver field after running the fastest time in Friday practices. He finished seventh.

“We are kind of getting ourselves off base sometimes during the race,” he said. “We always seem to rally back, but the rally back is always too late.”