Dale Earnhardt Jr. took advantage of a Brad Keselowski fumble to grab his first Cup win at Pocono Raceway Sunday.
Earnhardt was running second when Keselowski went up behind a lapped car to get a piece of paper off his grill slowing the No. 2 car’s momentum down the Long Pond straightaway as Earnhardt drove on by for the lead.
“I feel like this one is kind of on me and the circumstances,” Keselowski said. “I was trying to do something to help my car out and I knew it was going to break and I was going to get passed so I was trying to make whatever move I could do to help clean it off, and I’m not sure I did enough to make a difference.”
Otherwise it was a harder task for the 88 to get by Keselowski in the end.
“Well he didn’t want to let me by, but I don’t know if his motor was going to make it,” Earnhardt said. “He had me beat I couldn’t get to him. Just real hard to pass here.”
The same bad luck for the No. 2 team was similar for the No. 88 at Las Vegas, when Earnhardt ran out of gas leading on the last lap, handing Keselowski the victory.
The No. 2 was the dominant car on the day, with Keselowski leading 95 of the 160 laps. The 2012 Cup champ made a bold move after the start of the race to gain the top spot.
Getting clean air was important today and Keselowski stressed how it played the outcome of the race.
“It was going to dictate who was going to win the race. That’s part of racing. That’s part of really all of racing, the aerodynamics taking over motorsports, and we’ve all kind of learned to live around it and it makes the restarts so critical.”
Both he and Earnhardt were pretty equal toward the end.
“I thought we were pretty equal,” Keselowski said. “I thought there were five or six cars that were pretty equal, the 4, the 14, the 41, the 88 and us.”
Stewart-Haas Racing cars were strong early but problems plagued Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart.
Harvick had a flat tire and Stewart received a speeding penalty.
“100 percent driver error,” Stewart said. I don’t know how I got through the lights like I did, but I got to where I blew all lights and didn’t have any on the tach so I had no clue that I was over it.”
Kurt Busch finished third, with pole-sitter Denny Hamlin and rookie Kyle Larson rounding out the top-five.
Larson also ran Saturday’s ARCA race to gain an extra 200 miles under his belt and learn more about the track.
“I think I learned a little bit that helped me through turn two in the ARCA cars,” Larson said.
The win for Earnhardt was his second of the year and his first at the Tricky Triangle. Hendrick Motorsports has won the last four Cup races at Pocono with four different drivers.
Next up for the Sprint Cup Series is Michigan on June 15th. Television coverage continues on TNT beginning at 12 pm ET with a green flag at 1 pm ET. Radio coverage is on MRN and Sirius XM channel 90.
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