I ended up watching the second half of Sunday's race with friends at a restaurant up here in Bristol, Conn. We had the rare quadruple-birthday week and needed to celebrate appropriately.
Naturally, we demanded to get the race broadcast up, and by the end of the race our entire party, made up mostly of non-NASCAR fans, was glued to the TV. There was an uproar across the restaurant as Brad Keselowski won.
Unfortunately, the stir was due just as much to Carl Edwards' crash at the finish. And almost nobody, save for the scattering of NASCAR fans, realized how big of an upset Keselowski's victory was. Until I told them, of course.
Did we hook some new NASCAR fans? That race might've gotten people to buy into the excitement of the circuit, although just four of its 36 races are run on restrictor-plate tracks. There's no doubt that the finish got the race on all the highlight shows -- an accomplishment coming off a weekend that included the NFL Draft, NBA/NHL playoffs and a few MLB rivalry series.
But the focus has been on the wrecks -- Edwards' race-ending crash and the two "big ones." Some of the talk from the drivers has been about how the media glorifies and celebrates the wrecks, which I respectfully disagree with.
But I do think I've seen too much of the Edwards wreck, and not enough discussion about how noteworthy Keselowski's win was. So prepare for the All-Keselowski Tuesday Blog!
So, Brad … he's pretty good
Until Sunday, Phoenix Racing's Sprint Cup entries had been known for showing up at the restrictor-plate tracks and attempting to be one of the cars to fill out the field.
I say "attempting" because the team had made five races and failed to make four this season. Sunday was the first time Keselowski made the field for Phoenix Racing. Mike Bliss and Sterling Marlin have two starts apiece.
It's the third top-5 finish in the Cup Series for Phoenix Racing, which is owned by James Finch. But the other two came in crash-filled Daytona 500s in which the team simply had one of the last cars standing after the smoke cleared.
Is it an upset? You bet it's an upset. A case could be made that it's one of the biggest upsets in NASCAR history.
I asked ESPN analyst Andy Petree before Monday's NASCAR Now Roundtable where he would have placed Keselowski if he'd been asked to rank the 43 drivers before Sunday's race based on their chances of winning. He and I agreed Keselowski would have been in the 40s.
Trivia break! How many Nationwide Series wins does Phoenix Racing have, and which team driver has won the most?
A warm welcome
When you think of Keselowski, it's obvious that he has had some success in the Nationwide Series and could be the heir apparent to Mark Martin's No. 5 ride.
Keselowski has popped up in a couple of Sprint Cup Series fields in the 25 for Hendrick Motorsports, but he was making just his fifth career Cup start Sunday. It tied for the third-fastest a driver has notched his first win in NASCAR's modern era, dating back to 1972.
Year -- Driver -- Career start in first win
2002 -- Jamie McMurray -- second
2001 -- Kevin Harvick -- third
2009 -- Brad Keselowski -- fifth
1973 -- Mark Donohue -- fifth
Trivia break! Who was the most recent driver (in any era) to win in his first Cup Series start?
Weekend of firsts
Not only did Keselowski and Phoenix Racing visit Victory Lane for the first time, but David Ragan finally got there for the first time in a NASCAR major series race, winning the Aaron's 312 on Saturday. That's 196 career starts in Cup, Nationwide and Truck series racing before his first win.
Checking in with NASCAR's Sultan of Stats, Mike Forde, we find that the Keselowski-Ragan exacta was only the fourth time in NASCAR history that the Cup and Nationwide races featured first-time winners in the same weekend, and just the second time it had been done on the same track. See the accompanying list -- booyah!
Year -- Cup winner -- Nationwide winner
2009 -- Brad Keselowski -- David Ragan
2007 -- Juan Pablo Montoya -- Aric Almirola
2005 -- Carl Edwards -- Carl Edwards
1987 -- Davey Allison -- Mike Alexander
Trivia break! Almirola gets credited for that 2007 win at the Milwaukee Mile, but who was actually in the driver's seat when the car crossed the finish line?
Trivia break answers
1. Phoenix Racing has 11 Nationwide Series wins. Four of them were compliments of Jimmy Spencer.
2. Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Johnny Rutherford won a Daytona qualifying race in 1963, back when it was a points-paying race.
3. Denny Hamlin was the man in the 20 car at the end of the Milwaukee race, but Almirola won the pole and started the car, so he was credited for the win.
Matt Willis
