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By George Campbell

Brad Keselowski earned a hard-fought victory in the STP 400 at Kansas Speedway on Sunday afternoon. Keselowski and crew chief, Paul Wolfe, executed a perfect fuel strategy over the final 20 laps to secure the win. The result represented Keselowski’s second career NSCS win and first with Penske Racing, following his victory at Talladega Superspeedway in April of 2009. For Wolfe, a former NASCAR Busch North Series racer, it was his first as a crew chief at the NASCAR Sprint Cup level.

Keselowski began the 400-mile event from the 25^th position and immediately began working his way towards the top-20, where he found himself by lap nine. He radioed to Wolfe that the balance of his car was decent under the hot Kansas conditions, but that there was room for improvement. Wolfe called for an air pressure adjustment on a lap 45 pit stop thatresulted in Keselowski returning to the track in 17^th position.

While still fighting a tight-handling condition, Keselowski was able to turn laps faster than the race leader as he worked his way inside the top-15 on lap 54. Wolfe continued to tinker with the car’s air pressure and the Miller Lite pit crew continued to gain spots on pit road for their driver. On lap 74, Keselowski entered the top-10 for the first time on the day, an improvement of 15 positions from the start of the race.

Following a lap 111 caution, Wolfe ordered the first track bar adjustment of the afternoon, which allowed Keselowski to remain at the front of the field. The Penske Racing driver told his team that if he were able to secure “clean” air, he felt he could run out to a sizeable lead. Wolfe was able to provide as much “clean” air as he could by keeping Keselowski on the racing surface for several more laps after the race leaders began making their way down pit road around lap 200. Following a green-flag pit stop on lap 210, Keselowski had plenty of room to work and he began turning some of the fastest laps on the track.

Upon returning to the track following the lap 210 pit stop, Wolfe advised Keselowski that he was three-quarters of-a -lap short from having enough fuel to make it to the end of the race. At lap 234, Keselowski entered a fuel-saving mode. All of the cars in front of Keselowski would have to come down pit road for a splash of fuel to make it to the end. One by one they all made their stops and Keselowski assumed the lead from his Penske Racing teammate, Kurt Busch, on lap 259. He was able to conserve plenty of fuel to cross the finish line first, while having enough fuel to do a celebratory burnout and find his way to Victory Lane.

Paul talked about how his first win happened:

“Being my first win, I’m really excited about all the effort that's been put in so far. And to be able to get the Miller Lite Dodge to victory lane was pretty special today.

“Brad and I talked I think this week or the week before that, man, if we just keep putting ourselves in the top 10, it's not always the fastest car that seems to be winning these races. So we've kept working on our program since the beginning of the year. It's just been a good team effort here of late, just really trying to understand how to get these cars better and running similar geometries and front ends has definitely helped I think both of us to get our cars better.

“As guys started pitting, we kind of -- I kind of looked at where our lap times were, and it seemed like we started picking up a bunch of speed there. I don't know if we got some clean air or what. But it was almost a no-brainer for me because we were only losing three to four tenths to the guys on new tires where normally when guys start short pitting seems like you're losing over a second a lap and you just lose so much track position.

“But it was like as everybody started peeling off and pitting we just kept getting faster and faster, and we were still running mid I guess 33s or whatever it was, and guys were running low 33s. And it was like, well, we're not losing much, so it got us in a position where there were so many cars a lap down, even if the caution came out, we were still sitting okay. It was almost a no-brainer for me once I saw how much speed we had in the clean air.

“We were only about three-quarters of a lap short. So we didn't need to save much. But the way it played out, there was nobody really pressuring us. So we went into really conservative mode.  We knew it wasn't -- it really wasn't close. I didn't feel it was a very big gamble. We had ourselves in a pretty good position.

“So when I say the fastest car doesn't always win, I mean you can have the fastest car but if you don't have good pit strategy or you don't keep yourself out of trouble or put yourself in situations, it really doesn't matter. So what I've seen is if you can put yourself in the top 10, you give yourself a chance, at least. And we feel like that's what we did today. And I think our car is maybe a little better than what it showed.

“Honestly, I don't feel like staying out today was a huge gamble. But I think at this point we just want to continue to put fast race cars out there. And I think you put yourself in victory lane, that will take care of the points, and it kind of -- one works with the other as far as like Brad said it's probably going to take another win to get that spot. So I think we just keep approaching it like we have and that's trying to make our race cars faster and when you do that the results come.

Paul is one of the many former Busch North Series racers that have found success in the higher levels of NASCAR. His win comes on the heel’s of fellow former BNS racer Pete Rondeau’s recent win with Regan Smith in the Cup Series.

Paul and Pete are among a few of the Busch North Series Alumni that will be featured in the upcoming book Busch North Scene: The Busch Years 1987 – 2007.

Congratulations Paul!

Order your copy of 

Busch North Scene: A Ten Year Retrospective 

HERE

See information on the next book here!