Brad Keselowski Takes Win After Crazy Overtime Finish at Talladega

Maybe iRacing is pretty damn realistic, after all, folks. Brad Keselowski, who won this week’s iRacing eNASCAR Pro Invitational Series event at the virtual Talladega Superspeedway, pulled off the win in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 after frantic racing in the closing laps.

While Keselowski only led one lap on the day, he led the most important one as he captured his first win of the 2021 season and the 35th victory of his NASCAR Cup Series career.

“Man, what an awesome day today,” Keselowski said. “To bring the Money Lion Ford Mustang to victory lane, just, you know the whole race I had plenty of opportunities to take the lead, but I just kept thinking, ‘man keep your car in one piece.'”

Here is video of the finish of the race:

Brad @Keselowski WINS as they crash behind him at Talladega! Retweet to congratulate @Team_Penske and the No. 2 crew. pic.twitter.com/3SCDHAgocM

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 25, 2021

William Byron just missed out on his second win of the season, as he finished second and Michael McDowell had a shot to follow up his Daytona 500 win, but when he pulled out on the final lap, he didn’t have a drafting partner. McDowell would finish third.

Kevin Harvick came home fourth in his No. 4 car and Matt DiBenedetto, who had the lead going into the overtime restart, finished fifth. DiBenedetto won Stage 1 earlier in the race, which was his first-career Stage win.

Kaz Grala finished sixth and he was followed by Tyler Reddick, Austin Dillon, Ryan Blaney and Cole Custer in the top-10.

Sunday’s race was a wild show, which had three multi-car crashes.

Joey Logano went for a flip on the final lap of Stage 1, which ended his day, after contact with Denny Hamlin.

A crash involving Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott, William Byron and Alex Bowman in the closing laps of Stage 2 secured Bubba Wallace’s first-ever Stage win.

And on the final restart, there was a bunch of crashing as the field worked their way to the finish line.