Keselowski hangs on to win NASCAR title
HOMESTEAD, FLA.— Here’s a tweet for Brad Keselowski: NASCAR champion.
Roger Penske must like the sound of that, too.
The kid who stole the show at the season-opening Daytona 500 ended the year under the biggest spotlight of them all Sunday, beating five-time champion Jimmie Johnson to deliver the first Sprint Cup championship to Penske Racing.
It’s a trophy that had eluded Penske since he first entered NASCAR in 1972. Although his motorsports organization is considered the gold standard of IndyCar racing — 15 Indianapolis 500 wins — and his empire has made Penske one of the most successful businessmen in America, his NASCAR team operation was always just average.
Then came Keselowski, the blue collar, Twitter-loving, Michigan native who convinced The Captain his NASCAR team could be a winner, too.
Three years later, they hoisted the Sprint Cup trophy together at Homestead-Miami Speedway following Keselowski’s 15th-place finish Sunday night.
He started the race up 20 points on Johnson, who blew a tire and crashed last week at Phoenix to give Keselowski a nice cushion, needing only to finish 15th or higher in the finale to wrap up his first championship.
And this one got tight, too, especially when Keselowski ran out of gas on pit road during green flag pit stops. It put him a lap down with Johnson leading, and Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe frantically trying to figure out how dire the situation had become.
But minutes later, Johnson went to pit road for his own stop and pulled away with a missing lugnut. NASCAR flagged the Hendrick Motorsports team and Johnson was forced back to pit road for another stop.
It got worse for Johnson from there. He broke a rear-end gear in his Chevrolet and went to the garage with 40 laps to go, essentially clinching the championship for Keselowski.