Keselowski grabs first Cup win at Loudon

Brad Keselowski won in dominating fashion for his first Cup win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Sunday.

After a round of green-flag pit stops near the lap 80 mark, the No. 2 car was dialed in for the rest of the day

“The team was really on today,” Keselowski said.  “We really feel we hit our strides.  This was such a phenomenal weekend.”

The Michigan driver started off the weekend by winning Saturday’s 200-mile NASCAR Nationwide Series race and completed his second weekend sweep of 2014.

Keselowski took four tires on his first few pit stops before taking two on the second-to-last pit stop.

“The cars always handle a little bit worse when they don’t have new tires,” he added.  “They have a lot of tire wear and four tires were definitely a pretty good handling advantage.”

Once he got around Jeff Gordon for the lead on lap 270 for the final time, Keselowski would go on to score his first Cup victory at the Magic Mile.  Gordon ran out of gas during the final caution after trying to stretch his fuel.

Kyle Busch finished runner-up for the third straight Cup race at Loudon and the fuel lived in the No. 18 car as he ran out of gas after taking the checkered flag.

“It was a little easier to drive a little bit there at the end, saving fuel and what not,” Busch said.  “Just trying to bide our time as much as we could and make sure we were easy on that gas pedal and make it to the end.

Busch stayed out with a few others during a lap 250 caution and also didn’t pit on the final yellow of the afternoon.

“We had a late caution there that probably should of pitted,” he added.  “We have that win (at Auto Club), so you’ll do stupid things when that opportunity presents itself.  We stayed out and low and behold it worked for us.”

Rookie Kyle Larson finished third after having bad luck the last three races.  The driver of the No. 42 car had an average finish of 35^th from Sonoma to Daytona.

“It’s a shame we had those three bad runs,” Larson said.  “We were up to tied for seventh in points before Sonoma and fell back to 18^th, so we really had us scratch our heads and pray to get some good finishes again and now we’ve hopefully turned it around and can start getting some consistent finishes now.”

Larson gained some track position by staying out during a lap 114 caution and stayed inside the top 10 the rest of the race.

Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman rounded out the top-five, both drivers who are still looking for their first win of 2014.

Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. finished out the top 10.

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1. #2 Brad Keselowski

2. #18 Kyle Busch

3. #42 Kyle Larson (R)

4. #20 Matt Kenseth

5. #31 Ryan Newman

6. #15 Clint Bowyer

7. #14 Tony Stewart

8. #11 Denny Hamlin

9. #17 Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.

10. #88 Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

11. #5 Kasey Kahne

12. #78 Martin Truex, Jr.

13. #99 Carl Edwards

14. #3 Austin Dillon (R)

15. #16 Greg Biffle

16. #1 Jamie McMurray

17. #41 Kurt Busch

18. #47 A.J. Allmendinger

19. #27 Paul Menard

20. #66 Jeff Burton

21. #55 Brian Vickers

22. #10 Danica Patrick

23. #43 Aric Almirola

24. #38 David Gilliland

25. #34 David Ragan

26. #24 Jeff Gordon

27. #9 Marcos Ambrose

28. #26 Cole Whitt (R)

29. #98 Josh Wise

30. #4 Kevin Harvick

31. #23 Alex Bowman (R)

32. #7 Michael Annett (R)

33. #36 Reed Sorenson

34. #40 Landon Cassill

35. #32 Eddie MacDonald

36. #83 Ryan Truex (R)

37. #51 Justin Allgaier (R)

38. #13 Casey Mears

39. #33 Morgan Shepherd

40. #22 Joey Logano

41. #87 Timmy Hill

42. #48 Jimmie Johnson

43. #93 Mike Bliss