Brad Keselowski had race-winning speed in the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse. However, this was not enough to overcome a pair of pit-related problems.
The 2012 Cup Series champion had to settle for a ninth-place finish after a pit road penalty and an ill-timed caution that disrupted carefully-laid plans. Meanwhile, Chase Briscoe won his first race of the season and took one of the six remaining playoff spots.
The penalty was not due to speeding or too many men over the wall. Instead, it happened after a blown brake rotor sent Bubba Wallace into the wall and brought out the caution.
Keselowski headed down pit road for fresh tires as the leader of the race. The problem is that he was the only driver to make this trip. Pit road had not yet opened. This earned a penalty and sent Keselowski to the rear of the field midway through stage 2.
As the driver-owner told Prime Video, this was on him. NASCAR had previously used three laps as the buffer before opening pit road. This is not what the control tower did after the caution for Wallace. They opened pit road after four laps, but Keselowski did not look at the lights before heading onto pit road.
A costly miscommunication for the No. 6 team. pic.twitter.com/V4NDELXIsn
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 22, 2025
"We had a great car today," Keselowski said during the Prime Video post-race show. "Our BuildSubmarines Ford Mustang was really good. We got the lead there in the first stage and felt like we were in control.
"Lost control of the race early with the pit road penalty. And I thought we recovered really, really well from that. Got up to third or fourth there."
The second problem surfaced in the final stage during green flag pit stops. Keselowski had 15 extra laps of fuel in his car, so the plan was to run long, take the lead, and use clean air to build up a massive advantage.
Once the team built up a big enough lead, they would head down pit road for the final time. They had more fuel, so they only needed one can to complete the stop. They didn't need as much as competitors.
This plan backfired immediately after Keselowski took the lead. Shane van Gisbergen spun and brought out the caution the lap before the planned pit stop.
The 2012 champion had to head down pit road under caution with Justin Haley and Kyle Busch, the other drivers who stayed out. Other lead lap drivers were able to stay out on track, which cycled Keselowski back to 25th. He was able to work his way to ninth in the final 30 laps.
He had the race-winning speed in the car, but he didn't have enough time to recover from the caution.
"We kind of had the strategy to run longer than the lead pack there, and the yellow came out in the middle of the cycle. Cycled us back there to the end with, I guess, 30 to go."
With Briscoe scoring the win, only five spots remain in the playoff field. Keselowski can't take one of these spots with points-heavy days. He remains 30th in the Cup Series standings after a difficult start to the season. He must win.
As Keselowski said, he remains optimistic about the remaining races in the regular season. This includes the reconfigured EchoPark Speedway, a track where Keselowski finished second in the 2023 spring race.