Sunday
Keselowski Earns the Win at GIR in a Thrilling 5-Hour ENERGY 250
Press Release
He swapped the race lead with his teammate and event polesitter Justin Allgaier late in the race, but was able to pull ahead in the final six-lap stretch after a late-race caution. Allgaier, a native of Riverton, Ill. and an area fan favorite, finished third, while former Camping World Truck Series champion Mike Bliss took runner-up honors. Jason Leffler and three-time GIR NASCAR Nationwide Series winner Carl Edwards rounded out the top five.
Despite the final straightaway bump from Edwards during the race here in July, Keselowski said in Victory Lane that he had moved on. “I try not to hold grudges. I try not to think of that and just focus on our next race. That was key about winning today. You can’t panic about what happened in the last race. You have to move forward and move on with your life. Our team did that today.”
Allgaier won the pole with a speed of 135.131 mph, circling the 1.25-mile in 33.301 seconds earlier in the day and appeared to be the class of the field during the 200-lap race. A call on pit road for four tires after the sixth and final caution, however, doomed the No. 12 Dodge team’s chances for a victory in the final NASCAR event at Gateway.
“I guess the fastest car doesn’t always win the race,” he said from pit road afterwards. ”The Verizon Dodge Charger was awesome today and we had the car to beat. We just made a bad pit call late and it cost us. It stinks to come to your hometown, run so good and not get the win. A great run, but it should have been a better result. These guys put a great race car underneath me today.
“It’s too bad.”
A bad pit stop also affected St. Louis native Kenny Wallace, driving a car sponsored by the Illinois Corn Farmers and prepared by his brother’s team, Rusty Wallace Racing. “Herm” ran in the top 15 for most of the race after qualifying 19th and moved up as high as eighth, but a slow effort in the pits eventually led to a 13th-place finish for the driver most identified as the face of St. Louis in NASCAR circles.
“We had an eighth- to tenth-place car and on the last pit stop under green, we had a horrible pit stop,” Wallace said. “It was a bad time for a bad pit stop. We came into the pits 12th and went out 16th under green. That hurt us.”
Wallace has worked with Gateway since the track began hosting NASCAR in 1997, culminating with the naming of the south-side grandstands after him and his brothers Rusty and Mike Wallace in 2005. Of all the drivers who have raced here, it is Kenny who, more than anyone, wanted to finish his career with a win at his home track.
“I just hope the St. Louis people and everybody in the area…I hope they miss this race. I’m sure 20 years from now, we’ll all look back and think, ‘One time we had a NASCAR race here; it’s a bummer we don’t have one anymore.’”
The race ran reasonably smooth with six cautions for 26 laps, but a huge wreck on the frontstretch at Lap 105 damaged a total of ten cars and forced a red flag lasting more than 20 minutes. Taken out in the wreck was Scott Wimmer, driving the No. 10 car for Turner Motorsports and looking for a unique piece of Gateway history: Wimmer is the only driver to earn a top-ten here with four different manufacturers (Pontiac, Chevrolet, Dodge, and Ford). A top-ten finish Saturday in his Toyota would have bumped that stat to five.
Much of the media focus prior to the race was on JR Motorsports driver, Danica Patrick, who finished tenth in the IndyCar Series after running a full season with that sanctioning body. After struggling throughout the race from the 41st starting spot, the Roscoe, Ill. native eventually finished the day 22nd, 17 laps down.
The 5-Hour ENERGY 250 victory was Keselowski’s sixth of the NASCAR Nationwide Series 2010 season and widens the gap over Carl Edwards in the series’ points’ battle to 485 points. While Allgaier led the most laps of the race with 88, Keselowski’s Dodge was stout, leading four times for 83 laps.
The NASCAR Nationwide Series has next weekend off and returns to action in two weeks at Texas Motor Speedway. Fans can see the race live on ESPN2.
Race fans can follow all the action throughout the season at Gateway International Raceway on its official Twitter site at Twitter.com/GatewayRaceway and its official page on Facebook, Facebook.com/GatewayRaceway.
Dover Motorsports, Inc.
Dover Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE: DVD) is a leading promoter of motorsports events in the United States. DVD subsidiaries operate three tracks in three states, and present several hundred motorsports events each year. This includes 14 major, national events which include races sanctioned by NASCAR and the NHRA. Dover Motorsports, Inc. owns and operates Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del., Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis, Mo., and Nashville Superspeedway near Nashville, Tenn. For further information log on to www.DoverMotorsports.com. This release may contain forward-looking statements based on management’s beliefs and assumptions. Such statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause results to vary materially. Please refer to the SEC filings of DVD for a discussion of such factors.
GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
Gateway International Raceway is owned by Dover Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE: DVD), a leading promoter of motorsports events in the United States. DVD subsidiaries operate three tracks in three states, and present several hundred motorsports events each year. This includes 14 major, national events which include races sanctioned by NASCAR and the NHRA. Dover Motorsports, Inc. also owns and operates Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del., and Nashville Superspeedway near Nashville, Tenn. For further information log on to www.DoverMotorsports.com. This release may contain forward-looking statements based on management’s beliefs and assumptions. Such statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause results to vary materially. Please refer to the SEC filings of DVD for a discussion of such factors.
- Gateway International Raceway, Press Release
Article Tags: 5-hour Energy 250, Brad Keselowski, Dodge Charger, Dodge Motorsports, Gateway International Raceway, GIR, NASCAR, NASCAR Nationwide Series, NNS, No. 12 Discount Tire Dodge Charger, Penske Racing
