RELATED: Race results | Updated series standings
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Brad Keselowski‘s impressive performance in Sunday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway didn’t conclude with the Team Penske driver in Victory Lane.
Although he led 196 of the 367 laps in the 66th running of the annual event, a superb pit stop by Carl Edwards during the 18th caution period erased Keselowski’s late-race advantage, and the Joe Gibbs Racing driver proved too fast to catch in the closing 11 laps of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.
For the fourth time this season, Keselowski, the 2012 series champion, took runner-up honors.
“I needed to be a little bit better everywhere,” Keselowski explained. “Needed to be better on the restarts and … I brushed the wall a little bit there. I just needed to be a little bit better everywhere to have a shot at the win.”
Keselowski, who started on the pole, also finished second this year at Martinsville, Loudon and Pocono. He led a combined 21 laps at Martinsville and Pocono; he led 100 at Loudon.
Sunday night, his No. 2 Ford was stout and Keselowski had it out front for the first 62 laps, then 20, and then 54.
A new lower downforce aerodynamic package used at Darlington, and similar to one used earlier this year at Kentucky, combined with the typically rough Darlington racing surface saw tires wearing appreciably throughout the event. The result was much more focus on tire management, and while Keselowski had no problems in that area it eventually enabled others to attempt different strategies.
The lead changed hands. A lot. Eleven different drivers held the top spot at one point or another. But no one held it as long as Keselowski.
When Edwards emerged out front after his team’s efforts on pit road, it marked the 24th lead change of the race. Six of those had been in Keselowski’s favor.
“Yeah (it stings),” said crew chief Paul Wolfe. “We led a lot of laps; there were a lot of pit sequences and trying to manage tires is challenging. I don’t know that it’s a bad thing.
“You’ve only got so many sets of tires and you can’t just come to pit road every time. So it made that a little interesting and we had to stay out a few times where maybe we would have come in. But all in all I thought it made for some good racing.
“Disappointed we didn’t get the win. I thought we were in position there at the end where we needed to be. The 19 (of Edwards) did a stellar job on pit road and they were able to get out in front of us.”
Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick completed the top five.
Keselowski had his hands full fending off Harvick with about 45 laps remaining and the pair running 1-2. Edwards was closing, and with 34 to go he moved past the defending series champ to take second.
At Lap 345, Edwards was first across the line, but Keselowski quickly moved back in front; Harvick made another charge to reclaim second and Logano stuck his car into the mix.
But when the yellow flag flew on Lap 355 after Jeb Burton spun, the front-runners hit pit road and Edwards came out on top.
“I was fighting like hell to keep the track position,” Keselowski said. “We got to the lead on one pit sequence; we just kept going up and down on pit road. One stop we’d gain one or two (positions), the next stop we’d lose one or two.
“The guys had a really good stop to gain me one to get me into the lead with about 60 to go. Got to the lead and I was just playing straight-up defense on the 4 (of Harvick) and the 19.
“We got that yellow … with eight to go, 10 to go or whatever it was and they were just a little bit better.”