Brad Keselowski may have had the dominant car in today’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but his drive to the checkered flag was anything but easy.
The 2012 Sprint Cup champion overshot his pit box during yellow-flag stops with around 50 laps to go and dropped from second to fifth.
Then, after charging back to the lead off a restart with 38 laps to go, his No. 22 Team Penske Ford began losing power in the last handful of laps – just as Vegas native Kyle Busch was charging towards him and just as the two were heading into heavy lapped traffic.
But Keselowski persevered and was able to keep Busch in his rear view mirror to claim a nail-biter in the Boyd Gaming 300 at LVMS, his first Nationwide win on the 1.5-mile oval.
“We found everything we could to make it hard,” Keselowski told ESPN in Victory Lane. “…These races aren’t getting any easier to win. I drove as hard as I could every lap knowing that Kyle was coming, especially at the end there. We were having some troubles with the engine there and I knew it was just a matter of time before he caught me.
“I was just trying to get through as much traffic as I could and extend that [gap] and counting down the laps. It felt good that everything worked out in the end.
Meanwhile, Busch was visibly disappointed with the near-miss after what had been a tough weekend for him and the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team.
Busch was forced to go to a backup car after crashing his primary in practice. He was still able to qualify seventh but was then sent to the rear of the field when NASCAR determined his team had made an unapproved adjustment to his car after the machines had been impounded after qualifying; the team had discovered a frayed alternator belt.
An undaunted Busch roared through the field, cracking the Top 10 within the first 20 laps. He would later find the lead during the race’s middle stages.
But on the aforementioned restart with 38 laps to go, Busch (on the outside lane) was jumped for first and second by both Keselowski and Chase Elliott. He was able to get back to P2 shortly after but while he was able to reel in Keselowski, he couldn’t get past him.
“I don’t know what caused us to lose the lead,” Busch said. “That was unfortunate. I think that was the race. Our car was super fast on the long run when guys would get their tires hot and use up everything. You could see guys hang with us for about 10-20 [laps] and from about 30 [laps] on, it was me better than the rest.
“The best motor won today, that’s for sure. Probably the best car – [Brad] was really good. But I don’t know. That’s all we had.”
Sprint Cup rookie Kyle Larson made contact early with the wall and had visible front-end damage on his No. 42 Turner Scott Motorsports Chevrolet but still managed to finish third.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., the current Sprint Cup points leader, was fourth and his JR Motorsports employee, NNS rookie Chase Elliott, finished fifth to claim his first NNS career Top-5.
For the fifth time in 10 rounds of the 2023 Monster Energy Supercross season, the three riders at the top of the championship standings shared a podium and while those points tell one story, the NBC SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit tell a slightly different tale.Cooper Webb is peaking at the right time. – Feld Motor Sports
Chase Sexton has been all but perfect during the past 45 days with podium finishes in each of his heats and Triple Crown features. His only stumble during this period was a 10th-place finish in the Indianapolis Main. Last week, Sexton was perfect with wins in both his heat and the feature, although he needed a little help from an Aaron Plessinger mistake to take the top spot on the podium at the end of the night.
Cooper Webb finished fifth at Houston and was beginning to worry ever so slightly about his position in the points. Prior to the race in Tampa, he told NBC Sports that it was time to win and like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield fence, Webb went out and captured it. Following that race, Webb has swept the podium and earned the red plate two weeks ago in Indianapolis. At Detroit, he added two more points on Eli Tomac as the season begins to wind down.
Tomac struggled with a stiff neck at Indianapolis and after a modest third-place showing in Detroit, he revealed he was still suffering a little. Webb and Sexton have been able to close the gap on Tomac in the past 45 days, but one of the main reasons he is so close in the points was a pair of wins that started the year. Seattle is going to be important for the defending champion because Tomac cannot afford to lose any more momentum with seven rounds remaining.
It appeared Jason Anderson was turning things around. He earned his fifth heat win at Detroit, which was also his sixth consecutive race (including features) in which he scored a top-five. A fall in the Detroit Main dropped him a lap off the pace and sent him home with a season-worst finish of ninth, causing a ripple effect in the SuperMotocross Power Rankings.
Justin Barcia was a huge part of the show last week in Detroit. He swapped positions with both Webb and Tomac in the middle stage of the race, which allowed Sexton to close the gap. Barcia finished fourth in that race to earn his third consecutive top-five. He’s been outside the top 10 only once in the first 10 rounds.
Adam Cianciarulo had a great start to the Main. He led a couple of laps before losing a lap and slipping back to eighth in the final rundown. That run was strong enough to elevate him three positions in the SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit.
The NBC SuperMotocross Power Rankings look at the past 90 days in the 250 class in order to have a balanced comparison between the East and West divisions and Hunter Lawrence has been all but perfect this year. At Detroit, he earned his fifth win of the season and kept alive a streak of podium finishes in six rounds. He tied his brother Jett Lawrence with 10 250 wins one week before the West riders take to the track for back-to-back races at Seattle, Washington and Glendale, Arizona.
Nate Thrasher is settling into a comfortable role as ‘best in class’. – Feld Motor Sports
The Lawrence brothers are dominating the points in each of their respective divisions, which means the remainder of the field is battling to be best in class.
In the East, that rider is Nate Thrasher, who beat Hunter in a head-to-head matchup in their heat only to finish second in the main when the majority of points were awarded. Thrasher seems to have accepted his position in the championship standings, but that doesn’t mean he won’t keep trying for wins.
Haiden Deegan showed a lot of aggression in his heat last week. He threw a couple of block passes at his teammate Jordon Smith and set up a series of events that kept Smith from making the big show while Deegan settled into second in the preliminary. Deegan was unconcerned about how he raced his teammate and would not let a little controversy keep him from celebrating his second career podium in Detroit.
Jeremy Martin just keeps clicking off solid results. He won his heat last week by making a pass on Deegan and Smith while they were in the heat of their battle. Martin finished fourth in the Main, which means he continues to have only one finish worse than sixth in any of the features or mains.
Smith fell one position in the points standings, but the damage was even worse in SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit. Crash damage in his heat contributed to a last-place finish in that race, for which he earned minimal points. He was not able to advance from the Last Chance Qualifier after stalling his bike in heavy traffic.
250 Rankings
This
Week
Rider
Power
Avg.
Last
Week
Diff.
1.
Hunter Lawrence – E
[5 Main, 5 Heat wins]
90.43
1
0
2.
Jett Lawrence – W
[3 Main, 3 Heat wins]
90.30
2
0
3.
Nate Thrasher – E
[1 Main, 3 Heat wins]
84.00
5
2
4.
Cameron McAdoo – W
[1 Heat win]
79.80
9
5
5.
Haiden Deegan – E
[1 Heat win]
78.21
7
2
6.
Jeremy Martin – E
[2 Heat wins]
78.00
8
2
7.
Jordon Smith – E
[3 Heat Wins]
76.77
4
-3
8.
Levi Kitchen – W
[1 Main]
75.30
3
-5
9.
Mitchell Oldenburg – W
75.20
11
2
10.
RJ Hampshire – W
[4 Heat wins]
74.50
17
7
11.
Max Anstie – E
74.43
6
-5
12.
Tom Vialle – E
72.07
12
0
13.
Max Vohland – W
71.56
10
-3
14.
Stilez Robertson – W
[1 Heat win]
69.22
14
0
15.
Chris Blose – E
67.43
18
3
16.
Chance Hymas – E
67.10
15
-1
17.
Enzo Lopes – W
66.00
20
3
18.
Michael Mosiman – E
65.80
16
-2
19.
Pierce Brown – W
65.78
13
-6
20.
Phil Nicoletti – W
59.25
21
1
* The NBC Power Rankings assign 100 points to a Main event winner and 90 points for each Heat and Triple Crown win, (Triple Crown wins are included with heat wins below the rider’s name). The points decrement by a percentage equal to the number of riders in the field until the last place rider in each event receives five points. The Power Ranking is the average of these percentage points over the past 45 days for the 450 class and last 90 days for 250s (because of the split nature of their season).
