Brad Keselowski rides winning horse in XFINITY race at Kentucky
Aided by lapped traffic that held up the car being driven by Erik Jones, Brad Keselowski surged to the win in Friday night's Kentucky 300 XFINITY Series race at Kentucky Speedway.
Keselowski passed Jones with eight laps to go to take the lead for good, but then had to hold the 19-year-old driver off for the victory.
Jones was forced to settle for second, followed by Kyle Busch, his boss at Kyle Busch Motorsports.
"This Ford Mustang was really good," Keselowski said in Victory Lane, pointing to his No. 22 Team Penske car. "I almost messed up on the last restart ... Erik Jones took off and was out in the clean air, and I was just driving the crap out of it to try to keep up with him. Then I just caught a break when he got held up by the lapped car (of David Starr, who finished four laps down to the leaders). "
Indeed, when Jones caught up to the No. 44 car driven by Starr, Jones appeared to be caught off-guard when Starr ducked to the bottom of the track, presumably to get out of the way. Jones found himself stuck behind Starr for just an instant before going high to clear Starr, which was all the opening Keselowski needed to dive low and make the winning pass with Starr then in the middle of the two lead cars.
"I wish I would have known that lapped car was going to go to the bottom," Jones said. "Then I would have gone up top (sooner). That's all all I could have done different."
Keselowski earned his third series victory on the 1.5-mile oval and second 300-mile win in three starts this season. He had to bounce back from a hiccup when Busch tapped him from behind and Keselowski spun his tires on a Lap 169 restart that handed the race lead to Jones.
Unfazed, the 2012 Sprint Cup Series champion regrouped and eventually used the lapped car of Starr to guide his No. 22 Ford past Jones' No. 20 Toyota on Lap 192. He then went on to the win after finishing second in the race last year.
Busch finished third despite leading a race-high 88 laps. Rounding out the top five were Daniel Suarez and Elliott Sadler.
Series points leader Chris Buescher finished 11th, stretching his lead to 36 points over defending series champion Chase Elliott.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
