Brad Keselowski spent much of his afternoon inside the top five Monday at Dover Motor Speedway, led laps two different times and earned stage points in the opening stage, before going on to finish seventh in the Wyndham Rewards Ford, his second-straight top-10 of the season.
“We had a good recovery,” Keselowski said after the race. “Had top-five in the first stage, had a pit road issue, and we recovered from that. Solid top-10 day – drove back through.
“We’re not far off here, just looking for a little more, and I felt like we were pretty close. Excited about that, proud of our day – especially Chris [Buescher] running well. Just a strong showing.”
While rain and storms dominated the headlines all of Friday, much of Saturday, and all day Sunday, Monday’s conditions turned out to be picturesque, as Keselowski had a P4 starting spot on the grid after rain cancelled qualifying.
With the only other track activity coming during Saturday’s 15-minute practice session, NASCAR implemented a competition caution that would fly at lap 20. Keselowski was fourth at the time of that first yellow, but restarted at the point on the first restart of the afternoon. After a couple of quick cautions, the first long run came until lap 80 with Keselowski in sixth.
He restarted sixth after the second stop of the afternoon and went on to pick off two more spots to finish fourth in the opening, 120-lap stage. During the stop in the stage break, a tire on the front rolled away ultimately resulting in a penalty, putting Keselowski at the rear of the field on the ensuing restart.
From there, the No. 6 began its battle back through the field. The stage ran green all the way to the race’s first set of green-flag stops when Keselowski inherited the lead and eventually pitted on lap 200. Once the sequence cycled, Keselowski was sixth with 35 laps left in the stage and went on to finish 12thas one of only 12 cars on the lead lap.
The Michigan native began the final stage from the 12th spot, and only went up from there. He was ninth with 90 to go, and pitted from that position with 75 laps remaining under another green-flag pit sequence. The race’s final caution came out with 14 to go with Keselowski in sixth, setting up a restart with just seven laps remaining. He took the green in fifth, but the lane stalled out with Keselowski ultimately crossing the line seventh.
Keselowski and the No. 6 team return to action this Sunday at Kansas Speedway. Race coverage on Sunday is set for 3 p.m. ET on FS1, with radio coverage on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
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