Last Fall in Bristol, Brad Keselowski was dominating the night race. Then a tire cost him the win on Lap 413 of the 500 lap event. His teammate Chris Buescher picked up the slack and won instead. It was a wild night to balance his emotions. He’d have loved to score the first points paying win for his new team that he’s bought into. A tire gave that way.

Still, his other car did win.

On Sunday afternoon at the Richmond (VA) Raceway, Keselowski positioned himself nicely to end 83 race winless drought. He took over the lead on Lap 182 and use it to score the second stage win. The win was in his hands in the final stage until an unfortunate entry that he made into his pit stall on Lap 284.

By doing so, it was a slower stop than normal which dropped him from the lead down to fifth. He’d never lead again and instead bring his No. 6 Ford home in sixth place.

“I’d have to go back and watch it all,” Keselowski said of that stop. “I just got in a little too hard, wide, locked up the right front.

“Yeah, I’d struggle to give a great answer on how big a difference that would make until I’ve seen all the information. Certainly Chris was very fast. When we got back out on the track, got passed by two or three cars, I was just trying to hold on there for a little bit.

“Car handling got away from me a little bit. Not exactly sure why. We’ll go back and take a look at that.”

A win would have pushed him into the postseason but instead, his team car of Buescher delivered again and will be a part of the playoffs guaranteeing a spot into the 16-driver field.

“Happy for Chris,” said Keselowski who led a race-high 102 of 400 laps on Sunday. “We are incrementally building. Solid day for both teams here at RFK. I’m happy for everybody that works on these teams, everybody that supports us with Fastenal and Ford, Build Subs.”

Keselowski hangs his hat that both he and Buescher had to drive their ways up to the front. He started 13th. Buescher in 26th.

In order to finish 1-2 in the second stage, Keselowski had to pass 12 cars, Buescher 25.

“We led a lot of laps with both cars. Neither car really started up front. Drove through. Great job with the pit crews. A lot to be proud of today,” he continued.

“At that point, passed 24 cars. To do that, I knew he was really strong. We had the stage win there at the end of stage two. When we began stage three, Chris was able to keep right up with me. I think he was actually a little faster than me.

“He had a great pit sequence. I struggled a little bit on the pit sequence with some of my stuff. He found himself at the lead, never looked back there about 110, 120 to go, I guess.

“Of course, I want to win as a driver. Just happy that we’re as competitive as we are. We want to keep building and keep being more competitive every week.”

Of course he would feel bittersweet at the initial moment. He’s human after all. He’d love to have a win by now but is also overjoyed that in his second year as an owner-driver, he has at least one car in the playoffs already.

Roush Fenway Racing went 191 races without a win and now under Keselowski’s tutelage, they have two wins in the last 28 races.

However, Keselowski is a competitor too. He’d love to be the one in the playoffs at the moment instead. While he did gain 29 points on the cutline in going from +122 to +151, Buescher’s win also took away one of the wildcard spots too dropping Keselowski down to 14th in the playoff standings.

“I mean, obviously I want to win the race as a driver,” he said. “That’s super important to me. Bristol honestly stung a lot more than this did because it was out of our control where we blew a tire. Here I think there were some things in my control, our control as a team. I wasn’t flawless today. There’s a little bit of work to do there on my end.

“I don’t think it stings so much the way Bristol did. In both cases we had two good cars and we were able to strike with the 17 car. That’s something to be proud of.”

He’s now 31 points behind Kevin Harvick ahead and 97 points ahead of Bubba Wallace behind. While being that far above the cutline with four races remaining should give him plenty of optimism of getting two cars into the playoffs, among the 4 races left are 3 on wildcard tracks too.

Indianapolis Road Course, Watkins Glen and Daytona lie ahead. So does Michigan next week but Keselowski has never won on his home track before. Road courses are his worst set of tracks.

If we get another new winner or two over the next 3 weeks, Keselowski could in theory drop to the cutline heading to the regular season finale at Daytona.

That’s why Buescher winning is a double edge sword for him personally. For the team, it’s great. Selfishly though it does make things a little more difficult to lose that buffer.

“Yeah, I mean, one win’s good. You get three, four, five, then you feel a lot better. It sure beats not having at all there (smiling),” he said.

“We want to keep going. It is nice to have one car locked in the Playoffs. We need to get both cars locking into the Playoffs. We have a good points gap, but we want wins. This is where we need to be.”

There’s still two Hendrick cars that haven’t won yet. Michael McDowell and AJ Allmendinger can easily win on 1 of the 2 road courses. Austin Cindric won at Daytona last year. Bubba Wallace can easily win at Daytona too.

That’s why missing out on this win on Sunday could in turn cost Keselowski in the long run too.

“Yeah, Michigan always has been a great track for what that was Roush, then Roush Fenway. Hopefully it will be that way for RFK,” he noted. “We know it’s not going to be easy. A lot of competition there. Nice to go in there with a win under your belt.”