Brad Keselowski coming into New Hamshire Motor Speedway was just a handful of points outside the top 20 in points.
With his win at Kansas in June, Keselowski was in the cat bird seat on making the Chase if he could rally into the top 20 and even score another win.
His strong run at Kentucky had many people wondering can Keselowski close the deal and make the Chase?
Well Sunday his efforts were hampered by a tough run after what looked like a promising weekend.
He qualified in the fifth position and was looking strong early on. On the first round of pts though the team didn’t take tires and while everyone else at least took two and some four his cars handling quickly got away from him.
He went from running top five to 23rd after the first round of stops. Keselowski’s ill handling race car would soon become the least of his problems.
On lap 144 he cut a right front tire and hit the wall hard sending him to the garage to make repairs.
The damage was done though he would end up back on track but would finish 35th and fall two positions in the standings to 23rd.
Something even worse is he fell 25 points behind 20th which is important because if he can rally back into the top 20 he could still make the Chase.
After the race Keselowski said “We didn’t have very good long-run speed and the car started to push really bad. When you push really bad, it puts a lot of heat in the right front tire and that’s probably what caused the blowout. It’s disappointing. We had pretty good short-run speed, but wasn’t able to make the most of my car today. We’ll go back and work on it some more. We’ve been running pretty good as of late. We can’t let this stop our momentum. We’ve got to keep plugging away and not let this hold us back."
With only seven more races left until the Chase one bad finish could seal your fate.
It is even clearer that if you are outside the top 10 you are going to need to win a race and even if you have one win- two will get you in.
Now Keselowski and his team have to regroup and refocus on Indianapolis and Pocono before heading to the final road course of the season.
Question is do they change what has gotten them to this point? Or do they stay the course? He and his team have been running much better since May.
With the races winding down and chances to score wins to make the Chase, Keselowski, will have nothing to lose when the series heads to Indianapolis.
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