Brad Keselowski was inspired Sunday by a relative in the Navy Seals, and that was all he needed to push through his painful ankle injury.
Keselowski’s cousin lost a friend who was one of 30 American service members who died when their helicopter was shot down during fighting in eastern Afghanistan. The NASCAR driver took the sacrifice to heart, and vowed he would not leave his car no matter how bad he hurt.
So Keselowski went out and raced all 500 miles of the Sprint Cup stop at Pocono Raceway with a broken left ankle.
As if that wasn’t enough, he somehow managed to win, too.
Competing with a brace on his ankle, Keselowski sped off on the final restart late in the race to pick up his second victory of the season. He gingerly climbed out of his car to celebrate with his crew in Victory Lane. FOXSports.com
With Sunday’s victory—the third of his career—Keselowski’s fortunes took a dramatic turn with respect to the Chase.
Having cracked the top 20, Keselowski is in position to claim the first wild-card spot, being the only driver in positions 11-20 with more than one victory. Keselowski leaves Pocono 18th in the standings, having gained three positions Sunday.
Kyle Busch came home second, followed by Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Paul Menard completed the top 10.
Keselowski downplayed his gutsy effort. NASCAR.com
“I’m no hero,” Keselowski said. “The heroes are the guys who died in Afghanistan this weekend, and I want to spend time thinking about them. They were my inspiration for this weekend, the things those guys do. I’m glad we could win today, but those are the heroes. I just drive race cars for a living.”
The 500-mile race at Pocono was stopped for one hour and 40 minutes after rain fell on the 2.5-mile triangular track on lap 124. That allowed Keselowski to take a break and relieve some of his pain as well as fatigue he experienced from a sore back due to his accident last Wednesday. He slammed into the wall at the Braselton, GA road course at more than 100 mph. Keselowski was medically cleared to race one day later.
After the race concluded, Busch and Johnson had a heated argument on pit road.
“I was racing hard with Jimmie at the end,” Busch said. “I was flat out racing him. If you want to race, let’s race. I didn’t know we were supposed to pull over with five laps to go. I raced him hard, smart and clean, and he wants to come over here and [complain] about it.”
Johnson saw things differently.
“He claimed I turned down on him off of turn two, but I don’t have a clue,” Johnson said. “He ran over me on the corner exit, and that’s when it all started. We’ll figure it out.” Los Angeles Times
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