Brad Keselowski scored a sixth-place finish in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Keselowski claimed his second top-10 finish in three races this season and climbed up to seventh in the MENCS driver standings – a gain of five positions.

The 2 Crew in action at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Keselowski started eighth at Las Vegas and overcame a loose-handling Ford to score a sixth-place finish at the end of Stage 1. In Stage 2, Keselowski’s showed a good bit of short-run speed but the loose condition returned, plus the Discount Tire Ford was a handful in traffic and dirty air.  Keselowski pushed through those obstacles to score a sixth-place finish when the segment ended on lap 162.

During Stage 3, crew chief Paul Wolfe made a strategy call to short pit in an effort to gain track position. Keselowski pitted under green on lap 217 for four tires and cycled up to second place as other leaders made their scheduled stops. Try as he might, Keselowski couldn’t hold off his rivals in the closing laps of the race and was forced to settle for a sixth-place finish.

“We had really good short run speed and I thought we would be really good on the long runs today but it turned out we were really good on the short runs. That wasn’t at all what I was expecting. The short run speed was really strong but I just couldn’t get anywhere to capitalize on it.”