Keselowski makes it 2 straight wins with dominating run at Richmond

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Keselowski dominates, wins at Richmond

RICHMOND, Va. — Brad Keselowski raced to his second straight NASCAR Nationwide Series victory, dominating all night and then rallying from fourth in a green-white-checker finish Friday at Richmond International Raceway.

Keselowski began rebuilding his series points lead, cut to 10 points after he won at Talladega last week and then failed post-race inspection and was docked 50 points. The victory gave Keselowski a 59-point advantage over Kevin Harvick.

Keselowski, an eight-time winner in his Nationwide career, was on pace to lead the last 192 laps, but pitted as the leader under caution with five laps to go, handing Kyle Busch the lead.

But Keselowski reasserted his dominance by powering through the field on new tires to pass Busch and teammate Justin Allgaier, who had also stayed out, to win by 0.261 seconds.

“We made the right moves today,” Keselowski said. “We had the car to beat.”

Greg Biffle rallied from fifth on the restart to finish second. Jamie McMurray was third, followed by Busch and Carl Edwards. Allgaier was hurt by his late strategy, falling to 15th.

Biffle, who also pitted before the last dash, had no chance to slow Keselowski.

“The 22 was coming like gangbusters. I held him off as long as I could,” Biffle said.

The dramatic ending served only to reinforce that Keselowski had the best car.

Earlier, he was leading by more than 3.5 seconds when a crash by Jason Leffler brought out a late caution, and gave Busch an opportunity to make amends for an earlier error on pit road that dropped him from second to sixth. This time, he went into the pits fourth and came out second, lining up to the outside of Keselowski on a restart with 57 laps left.

It hardly mattered.

“We just didn’t have anything for (Keselowski) tonight,” Busch said. “He was so stellar.”

Keselowski powered away easily, closing off the inside when Allgaier tried to get below him, and quickly found himself clear of the field, building a margin of nearly 3 seconds.

He wound up leading 189 laps in a race that went two overtime laps for 252 in all.

Busch, who swept both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races here a year ago and then won both pole positions in qualifying Friday, led the first 58 laps until Keselowski went by.