Brad Keselowski Jumps Hurdle to Victory

Proving that nothing stands in his way when pursuing his goals, NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski claimed first place in the Sprint Cup Good Sam RV500 at Pocono Raceway on Sunday August 7 – despite the fact that he had a broken left ankle. Sprint Cup competitors may have been somewhat skeptical when Keselowski jokingly remarked that he could beat them, even with a broken leg, but with his ankle strapped into a brace, Keselowski left the field behind and lived up to his challenge. Keselowski was injured on Wednesday at Road Atlanta during testing, but was clearly unwilling to let that unfortunate experience hold him back.

Proving that nothing stands in his way when pursuing his goals, NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski claimed first place in the Sprint Cup Good Sam RV500 at Pocono Raceway on Sunday August 7 – despite the fact that he had a broken left ankle. Sprint Cup competitors may have been somewhat skeptical when Keselowski jokingly remarked that he could beat them, even with a broken leg, but with his ankle strapped into a brace, Keselowski left the field behind and lived up to his challenge. Keselowski was injured on Wednesday at Road Atlanta during testing, but was clearly unwilling to let that unfortunate experience hold him back.

The race on Sunday was interrupted by rain at the completion of Lap 124, but resumed again after a waiting period of 1 hour, 40 minutes, and 46 seconds. Keselowski was undeterred by race stoppages and upon the Lap 185 restart he pulled away from Kyle Busch to claim his second victory of the current Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup season, and the third of his career. As the only driver in the 11-20 position ranking with more than one victory, Keselowski has cracked the top 20, putting himself in a position to claim his first wild-card spot. He gained three positions on Sunday at Pocono, leaving him at 18th in the standings.

When proclaimed as a hero for his incredible win, Keselowski noted that he does not consider himself to be a hero, directing attention to the soldiers in Afghanistan as deserving of being called heroes. Putting his achievement into perspective, Keselowski was quoted as saying “I’m glad that we could win today, but those (referring to the soldiers) are the heroes. I just drive racecars for a living.” While in no way diminishing Keselowski’s praise for the US armed forces in Afghanistan, his teammate at Penske Racing, Kurt Busch, noted that Brad Keselowski deserves a good measure of credit for being back on the track so soon after Wednesday’s accident, and then going on to achieve success.

Kyle Busch took second place in the Good Sam RV500, with Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman taking the follow up position. The top ten of the race was completed by Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Paul Menard.