Photo – Chris Trotman/Getty Images
A long day ended with a good result for Brad Keselowski and his No. 2 Team Penske team in Monday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Axalta ‘We Paint Winners 400’ at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.
The event’s pole sitter had to rally from the back of the field after NASCAR ordered him to pit road on Lap 27 after determining his Team Penske pit crew made unapproved body modifications to the right-side of his No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion during the previous rounds of pit stops.
FOX Sports 1, who broadcasted the race showed a crew member throwing his shoulder into the side panel while the car was being jacked to change right side tires. In theory, the alternation to the body could help create side-force and offer an advantage over the competition.
While Keselowski’s crew fixed the body under the event’s third caution, NASCAR forced him to come to pit road as the field took the green flag on Lap 27 to serve a pass-thru as part of the penalty for the infraction.
Despite the penalty and contact late in the race, avoiding a crashing Jimmie Johnson, Keselowski slowly but methodically raced from the rear and challenged Dale Earnhardt Jr. for second on the last lap but settled for third.
After the race, several NASCAR officials surrounded the No. 2 car preventing the team from any further post-race work.
A NASCAR spokesperson told members of the media that the sanctioning body wanted to take a closer at the area of concern before anything else was done to the car.
“It was a long day, but overall a decent weekend for the Miller Lite Ford. It wasn’t really two pit penalties, it was two NASCAR penalties and I’m not sure I really know what happened there,” Keselowski said. “The team guys can probably give you a better answer, but we fought back really well.
At the end I think we were capable of winning the race with a really fast car, even with the right side door torn up. I guess we had a little contact there when the 48 was spinning, so it shows how fast we were today. We had great pit stops, but just didn’t bring home the win. But we’re really close and been really strong and consistent lately, which is something we’re proud of.”
Keselowski who had not seen the television broadcast was unsure why he was penalized, but asked if the situation was frustrating.
“Of course, it is frustrating,” he added. “I don’t know what they saw so it is not really fair for me to say anything about that. I can tell you that every car I saw had some body modifications on it after pit stops out there today. I don’t know if ours was more egregious or even if we had one. That is for the team guys to really answer. Of course, it is frustrating.
“You don’t want to have to come from the back. Almost got back to the front, just came up a little short. A lot of great effort for our team. We needed a tiny bit more left. I could have used a 500-mile race but that might not be the most popular opinion in the garage but it is for me today.”
The real question that remains was there anything that NASCAR saw that they didn’t like that would warrant additional penalties? Unlikely.
Keselowski’s car cleared post-race inspection and was not taken back to NASCAR’s Research and Development center in Concord, North Carolina, but of course only time will truly tell.