A week after guaranteeing himself into the Eliminator round of the Chase, Brad Keselowski found trouble in Sunday’s Cup race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
It marked the second straight round where the opening race spelled potential doom for Team Penske.
Keselowski didn’t appear to have a race-winning car by any means, but his No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Fusion was competitive. That was until his transmission broke on Lap 435, starting a chain-reaction crash that collected several drivers, including Chase hopeful Carl Edwards.
“It just started shaking off of (Turn) 2, and then it kicked itself out of gear, because it was shaking so hard,” Keselowski radioed to his crew.
When the six-time winner this season slowed in the outside lane, Casey Mears hammered him from behind. The 14th caution of the race also collected Kasey Kahne, Martin Truex Jr. and Danica Patrick.
Carnage from the crash forced NASCAR to stop the race for 11 minutes, 19 seconds for cleanup.
Keselowski later returned to the track, after repairs to finish 31st and finding himself in a similar situation as Chase contender Kevin Harvick, who experienced problems on Lap 229.
“It’s not the day we want by any means, but the guys did a great job,” said Keselowski. “They put a gear in this car in 28 laps at Martinsville, that’s pretty phenomenal but it was just unfortunate the way the day played out. We were doing the things we needed to do. We were surviving. We were gonna probably have ourselves a fifth or sixth-place day, which is certainly something we could be proud of and move forward with, but this kind of puts us in a position now where we need to win.
This Chase lends itself to those moments and we’re a team that’s capable of them, so we’ll try to be as positive as we can and move forward with two more opportunities to do just that.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
