The long wait is over for Ford, and more importantly Brad Keselowski. Keselowski handed Ford its first win of 2024, and his first since becoming co-owner of Roush-Fenway Keselowski Racing.
Keselowski took advantage of a late race dust up between the second RFK car of Chris Buescher and Tyler Reddick with 10 laps to go taking the lead and holding off Ty Gibbs for his first win in 110 races the last one coming at Talladega in April of 2021.
“What a heck of a day,” Keselowski said. “It’s Darlington, so whether it’s your first win, your last win, this is a really special track. The history of NASCAR, it’s as tough as it gets, and that battle at the end with my teammate and Tyler Reddick, we just laid it all out on the line, it was freaking awesome. I thought it couldn’t get much better than Kansas. It did today. That was awesome.”
For most of the day it appeared to be Reddick’s race to lose. Sadly, for him, in the end that’s what happened. Reddick led the most laps all day, 174, the most of his career and the most that 23XI Racing has led in a single event.
Reddick led on a restart with 33 laps to go after the race’s sixth and final caution. Keselowski, however, fought on the inside with the two battling side by side for several laps as Buescher lurked close behind. With those two fighting it out, Buescher tried to shove his boss to the lead, and failing that dove on the inside of the front stretch on lap 264 and had a clear lead by turn 3.
That lead would end for Buescher with less than 10 to go when Reddick caught him and the two banged doors fighting for the lead. Both cars got together coming out of Turn 4 and slowed allowing Keselowski to power by, re-take the lead and go on for the win.
“We were all just racing our guts out,” Keselowski said. “I mean, there was nothing left on the table for any of us. I got underneath Tyler. We were kind of switching back and forth and I felt like he was probably holding me down. He probably felt like he was being pushed up. Chris got by both of us, but Chris’ car was falling off too much. He couldn’t drive away and we were just right there with him and it looked like the 45 tried to do a slide job and it just didn’t quite work and both of them had some kind of an issue. We were able to scoot back by them.
“A hell of a day. I don’t know if you could have asked for me. We thought Kansas was exciting. I think this was more exciting.”
Behind Gibbs, Josh Berry was third, Denny Hamlin fourth, and Chase Briscoe fifth.
“Yeah, I think I just honestly needed track position; that would be great,” Gibbs said. “Getting out front before those guys started racing. It was really hard to pass today and that middle is super, super slick and honestly really gummy and slick. It was just really hard to pass, and it’s just really important to keep track position.”
Keselowski was Reddick’s nemesis all race long, leading 37 laps on his own. But with clean air once again the king it became a battle off pit road which Reddick, who started from the pole and had the first pit stall, won all race long.
Reddick had a comfortable lead until lap 255 when Kyle Larson, who had made contact with the wall a few laps earlier, had his Chevy lose a rear tire and spin into the outside wall setting up the final green flag run.
Both Buescher and Reddick were forced to pit with flat tires from their late race contact. Reddick finished 2 laps down in 32, Buescher who last week lost to Larson in the closest finish in NASCAR history was credited with 30th.
Buescher confronted Reddick on pit road after the race. Reddick apologized to Buescher admitting to him that he “fu*ked up.”
“I don’t have a winner’s sticker on my car, it means more for me. You need to be better,” Buescher replied.
In addition to Larson, defending series champion Ryan Blaney crashed out on lap 129 a victim of a three wide battle on a restart.
Willam Byron was sixth, Bubba Wallace seventh. Alex Bowman, Justin Haley and Michael McDowell rounded out the top 10.
Keselowski admitted he lost control of the race with 33 to go, but was confident he’d get back to Reddick.
“I knew that I’d have another shot at it,” Keselowski said. “My car was really good on the long runs. When Tyler got underneath Chris, I knew I had another shot at it when they made contact. I couldn’t get by, and I’m like, ugh. Then they must have got a flat tire, I don’t know what happened, and we caught a break. We’ve caught enough bad breaks over the last year or two, it’s nice to catch a good one.”
The NASCAR Cup series now heads to North Wilkesboro Speedway for next Sunday’s non-points All-Star Race. Larson is the defending winner.
RACE RESULTS
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.