On Sunday, a shiny new trophy was nestled away in victory lane, just waiting in its rightful place at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The only thing yet to be determined though was, which race shop was it going back to. Would it be going to Hendrick Motorsports’ headquarters or Joe Gibbs Racing’s?

In Stage 1, six of the top 10 finishers were among those camps. In Stage 2, that number grew to seven of 10. In fact, they went 1-2-3-4-5-6-10. In Stage 3, they were 2-4-5-6-7-10. The only reason that they didn’t win that stage was because Joey Logano stayed out while all but two other lead lap cars hit pit lane. Clean air rang key and Logano stole the stage win.

• 

In the final laps, it was coming down to Hendrick to take their 60th career win on 1.5-mile tracks. All four cars were running in the top six including 2-3. But, they and JGR left the door open for the taking and that’s just what Brad Keselowski did.

Jimmie Johnson led the race with 48 laps remaining. He had a bad restart and his winless streak extends to 103 as a result. Keselowski, passed him for the lead on Lap 354. But, Chase Elliott made up for a gutsy pit call towards the end of that third stage not to pit, which forced him from third to the last car on the lead lap in 18th. He fell like a rock without clean air or tires.

Still, Elliott passed a lot of race cars and found himself back up to second inside of 50 to go. He was stalking Keselowski for the lead, even passing him for the top stop on Lap 363. Elliott, was leading on Lap 400 still – the scheduled race distance. Unfortunately, we went into overtime. He led the 600th mile of the race but Elliott’s teammate, William Byron, cut a tire and brought out the eighth and final caution on Lap 397.

Even with clean air being the best option, Elliott’s crew chief Alan Gustafson saw ghosts. He saw how hard his car fell the last time he kept him out on the 1.5-mile race track. What he also failed to see was, Elliott had the fastest race car at the time and that Logano did the same thing aback on Lap 278 and didn’t pit for tires. Same as Elliott. Logano then, had clean air out front. He’d lead the next 25 laps.

Elliott, pit and would fall to 11th. While he rebounded to finish third, that caution and pit stop decision cost him the victory. Johnson, finished second, one spot behind Keselowski. Remember him getting passed for the lead a few laps earlier? If Johnson holds the top spot over Keselowski, and Elliott passes Brad, then Johnson, it’s Johnson’s turn up front and in clean air for the final restart. Instead, it was Keselowski.

Bowman, won the first two stages and a race-high 164 of 405 laps, but he only led one lap since Lap 224.

Charlotte has been a place that has led to dominating performances. Truex led 392 laps in his win in 2016. He led 116 more in his win last year. He led 87 on Sunday night but finished seventh and wasn’t as good in dirty air as clean.

Kyle Busch led 377 laps in his win in this race in 2018.

Keselowski, led the least amount of laps for a race winner at Charlotte since Austin Dillon in 2017. In fact, only three times now in the last 11 Charlotte races has the eventual winner led less than 100 laps.

But, you can’t fault Keselowski. The win was there for the taking and he took it. I don’t see JGR or HMS allowing a win to get away for a second time. The front row on Thursday night is an all HMS row with William Byron-Alex Bowman lining up 1-2. They can dominate early again.