(Photo: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
By Aaron Bearden
Post-race review and analysis from the NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Who Won?
Brad Keselowski. He held on through a two-lap sprint after electing not to pit under the final caution to add another major race win to his resume.
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Hendrick’s Strange Night
Had Sunday’s race been 590 miles, Hendrick Motorsports would have had the best performance in recent company history. The longtime power saw Chase Elliott rolling to victory and had all four cars in the top seven.
But the Coca-Cola 600’s outcome is often determined by its final miles, and the 2020 edition of the race was no exception.
Hendrick’s near-perfect day saw Alex Bowman claim two stage wins and reach a new career-best season total in laps led despite being just seven races into the season. Jimmie Johnson had led the field to what could have been the final restart and proven to be a contender throughout the night. William Byron ran strong for the entire race and Elliott rose when it counted to make himself the favorite for his first crown jewel victory.
But just as Elliott was hitting two laps remaining, the caution flag flew.
Suddenly his No. 9 team was put in a precarious position – and it was all because of trouble for a teammate.
The final caution came because of a flat tire for Byron, which caused the third-year driver to spin out despite making a sincere effort to save his No. 24 Chevrolet.
“We just shredded a left rear tire there,” he said. “We had a bit of a tire rub when we went green with almost 50 to go, so I don’t know why it gave out with only a couple laps left after making it that long.”
That ended Byron’s quest for a top-10, dropping him a lap down in 20th at race’s end. But the bigger heartbreak would come to his teammate moments later.
Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson elected to pit under the ensuing yellow, leading a group that included Martin Truex Jr. and others to pit road. But 10 others stayed out, including Brad Keselowski.
In that moment Elliott knew that his chance to win was likely gone.
“When you are leading the race like that, people behind you are going to do the exact opposite of what you do,” Elliott said afterward. “That was the situation we were put in.”
Johnson restarted alongside Keselowski on the front row for the ensuing restart, but couldn’t keep up with the 2012 Cup champion’s pace.
Bowman pushed Keselowski on the restart with hopes of making a move for the win himself, but ended up sent up the track after contact before dropping back to 19th at race’s end.
Elliott rallied over the two-lap sprint but made it only to what seemed to be third before the checkered flag flew.
At midnight ET, Elliott was cruising to a major win. Hendrick Motorsports was set for four great finishes and seemed poised to break out as this season’s power team on intermediate ovals.
Just 10 minutes later Keselowski rolled past the start-finish line with just two of the four Hendrick cars within range.
It only got worse going into the wee hours of the morning, as Johnson’s car failed post-race technical inspection. He was disqualified, earning only a point for last-place. That shifted Elliott to second, but meant only one Hendrick car finished in the top-15.
The good news for Hendrick Motorsports faithful is that the team’s early-season pace has persevered through NASCAR’s return.
Bowman has emerged as a potential title contender, leading laps and challenging for wins regardless of the track. Elliott remains a threat to win on his good days, in contention at both Darlington Raceway and Charlotte before untimely crashes – one including him, the other his teammate – sent his runs awry. Johnson looks as good as he has in any season since his seventh title run on 2016. Even Byron has shown pace, though tire woes and crashes have kept him from getting many results to match it.
Hendrick teams led 208 laps of the Coca-Cola 600, and the organization will surely be among the favorites when Cup returns to NASCAR’s home track on Wednesday. That’s likely to continue into the foreseeable future, too.
The quartet of teams will just have to hope the lost points during the past week don’t come back to haunt them this fall.
Brad’s Big Day
If Hendrick Motorsports couldn’t win last night’s race, it’s only fitting that the driver Rick Hendrick let get away, and could potentially get back, was the one to deny them the chance.
Brad Keselowski currently finds himself in the unusual position of playing the free agency game, running what might be his last season with Team Penske after joining the group in 2010. He saw his longtime crew chief Paul Wolfe replaced by Jeremy Bullins in an offseason shakeup at the organization, and remains unsigned for 2021 entering the summer months.
Joey Logano is the most recent champion at the team, having made good on Penske’s investment in his post-Joe Gibbs Racing career with a 2018 title. Ryan Blaney hasn’t scored many major wins, but has shown promise and is one of NASCAR’s most marketable young stars. Austin Cindric is seemingly waiting for his opportunity while rising up the ladder, currently contending for a title in the Xfinity Series.
That leaves Keselowski as the most likely one out, particularly in a contract year. The No. 2 team seems poised for a potential transition, symbolized no better than by Keselowski’s win in what is longtime sponsor Miller Lite’s only race as a primary sponsor this season – and potentially the brand’s last with Team Penske.
“I’m really happy for Miller Lite,” Keselowski said. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen with them, if they’re gonna come back on the car or what, but it’s been a great 10-year ride with them and this is their only race of 2020 and we’re in victory lane.”
The 2012 Cup champion has largely avoided discussing his free agency publicly, claiming he really hadn’t worked on it before the COVID-19 hiatus and choosing to focus on the pandemic itself during the break.
But while Keselowski has stayed quiet, his stock has risen along the way.
The only driver that could have conceivably been considered a bigger get going into the year was Kyle Larson, and the Californian has found himself ousted from NASCAR altogether at the moment after uttering a racial slur during an iRacing event.
Keselowski added even more value on Sunday with an old-school drive. He never seemed to have the outright pace of the Hendrick Motorsports cars and struggled at times to match Martin Truex Jr. as well. But Keselowski kept out of trouble and quietly rose up the grid, avoiding the mistakes that befell others.
The veteran had his first real shot at the lead on the penultimate restart and quickly took advantage, surging past Johnson for the spot. He couldn’t match Elliott’s pace on the ensuing run, but when his No. 9 team gave the race away Keselowski was ready to capitalize.
Suddenly he’s added another crown jewel win to a resume that already included the Bristol Night Race, Southern 500 and Brickyard 400. He’s also proven that he can win with another crew chief, a critical requirement should Keselowski switch teams.
Keselowski may be re-signed by Penske when all is done. Simon Pagenaud found himself in a similar position with the group last year, but was brought back after winning the Indianapolis 500 – a move Penske claimed didn’t influence the decision, but also a victory that couldn’t have hurt Pagenaud’s case.
But the veteran still had no news after his latest big win. At best that means he and Penske are taking their time, but at worst it could be an early sign that Keselowski will go elsewhere at year’s end.
If that happens, why not land at Hendrick?
A decade ago Keselowski seemed poised for a ride with the Chevrolet juggernaut, showing strong promise while running for JR Motorsports in what was then the Nationwide Series (now Xfinity Series).
But the timing wasn’t right. Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. weren’t going anywhere. Mark Martin still had time on his contract.
The timing couldn’t be better now. Bowman recently re-signed for another year, but Johnson’s No. 48 still lingers as an opportunity with the veteran retiring at season’s end.
Larson is seemingly out of the running for the time being. JR Motorsports has prospects, but none have generated Cup buzz this year. The current remaining lineup is also filled with youth, so Keselowski’s addition would bring veteran experience to the team.
Keselowski’s Memorial Day weekend win will likely be something he remembers forever, a moment he capped off with an American flag in hand while making donuts in front of empty grandstands.
Time will tell if he chooses to join the team he upset to achieve it.
Other Notes
- Tyler Reddick did it again. On a day when both he and Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon showed pace, Reddick survived the final restart to score a strong eighth-place finish. The run shifted him ahead of Dillon and into the current playoff grid in 15th.
- Christopher Bell also continued his recent streak of improvement, notching his first top-10 in ninth. “I think we are headed in the right direction,” he said. “We have to obviously keep making gains – getting a little bit faster, me doing a better job. We’re gaining on it.”
- He never challenged for the win, but Ryan Blaney ended a recent run of poor luck and performance with a much-needed top-five. Blaney’s third-place run was his first top-10 since the season-opening Daytona 500, following a streak of five races with an average finish of 20.8.
- Arguably the worst part of Byron’s ill-timed flat tire was how rare cautions were on the night. While the lack of attrition was masked by stage breaks and one stoppage for rain, only four caution flags were flown for actual incidents in 405 laps.
- Rain continues to plague NASCAR. The liquid menace has impacted five of the opening seven “race weekends” so far, including a stint of just over an hour in the opening stage of Sunday’s 600-miler.
- The high from Wednesday’s Darlington win was met with a quick low for Denny Hamlin. The Daytona 500 champion’s No. 11 Toyota lost ballast before the initial green flag, trapping him seven laps down and kicking off a miserable night as his team worked to replace it. Hamlin should lose his crew chief, car chief and head engineer for four races to the incident shortly.
- Clint Bowyer’s poor luck continued on Sunday, with the veteran suffering a rare flat tire and pounding the wall after 96 laps. Thankfully, he was okay. “It knocked the wind out of me there,” he said. “I mean, we’re 100 laps into a 400-lap race and to be out already, you talk about a helpless feeling.
