Brad Keselowski made the most of a late-race pass around Clint Bowyer to score a 10th-place finish in the Dixie Vodka 400 Sunday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The driver of the No. 2 MoneyLion Ford Mustang reeled off his seventh consecutive top-10 finish, dating back to the race at Darlington Raceway on May 20. Behind his sixth top-10 finish in 13 starts at Homestead, Keselowski moved up to fourth in the NASCAR Cup Series driver standings, now 51 points behind leader Kevin Harvick.
Multiple delays for lightning and rain pushed back the start of the race and brought out a red flag on lap 33. The race finally resumed just past 8:00 p.m. ET with Keselowski running in sixth position. The balance on the No. 2 MoneyLion Ford Mustang was free on corner entry and too tight in the middle of the turns but Keselowski held on to finish sixth when Stage 1 ended on lap 80. He pitted during the stage caution on lap 83 and restarted eighth when the race returned to green on lap 87.
Throughout Stage 2, Keselowski said the balance on the No. 2 Mustang was too tight. He made two pit stops during the segments (laps 120 and 152) but the adjustments didn’t drastically improve the handling of the MoneyLion Ford. Keselowski was credited with an 18th-place finish when Stage 2 concluded on lap 160. After he pitted for four tires and another chassis adjustment during the stage caution, Keselowski took the green flag in 16th place when the race restarted on lap 167.
Over the final 100 laps of the race, Keselowski steadily worked his way toward the top-10 and the No. 2 team, led by crew chief Jeremy Bullins, continued to improve the balance on the MoneyLion Ford. Keselowski was running 14th when the final green flag pit stop cycle was completed on lap 230, 37 laps from the finish. As the closing laps of the race began to wind down, Keselowski chased Bowyer, looking to secure a top-10 finish. On lap 264, just three laps from the finish, Keselowski passed Bowyer for the position to keep his recent streak of top-10 finishes intact.
“It was a good comeback for our MoneyLion Ford team tonight,” said Keselowski. We were really tight for most of the race but Jeremy (Bullins) and the guys kept working hard and we came away with a top-10.”
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