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Las Vegas • Dale Earnhardt Jr. knew he probably didn't have enough fuel to finish. Being in Vegas, he decided to gamble anyway.
And when Earnhardt's tank went bust on the final lap, Brad Keselowski was right there to clean up.
Keselowski surged ahead when Earnhardt ran out of fuel, claiming a dramatic victory Sunday in the NASCAR race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Earnhardt's Chevy sputtered and slowed out of the second turn, and Keselowski roared past him on the backstretch in his Penske Ford for the first weekend sweep in his career. Keselowski followed up Saturday's Nationwide Series victory with his first Las Vegas Cup win, doing it in exhilarating fashion against the friend and mentor who gave him his first big break in racing.
"That's what you live for as a driver, at least I do," Keselowski said. "Those moments where you're side by side, and you lay it all out on the racetrack and bring back the car with the tires smoking, engine smoking, and you're worn out inside because you gave it all you had. It was one of those races there at the end."
Keselowski knew all about the fuel shortage faced by Earnhardt and Carl Edwards, who both made their final pit stops about 10 laps before him. So Keselowski decided to force the issue, getting around Edwards and pushing for the lead so Earnhardt would be forced to abandon his conservative, fuel-saving lines.
"I felt like we could run him down," Keselowski said about the driver who put him in his first Nationwide ride. "He was going to have to burn fuel to keep me behind him. At that point, it was just a matter of whether a yellow [flag] came out or not, because it was just a ticking time bomb. It worked in our favor today."
Earnhardt finished second. Earnhardt and his Hendrick Motorsports ride were just a few ounces of fuel shy of earning their second victory in three races to start the season.
When Earnhardt sat down for his post-race news conference in front of two cans of his sponsor's energy drink, he picked up one can wistfully: "That's all we needed, just 16 ounces."
The Daytona 500 champion was disappointed, but not discouraged after his spectacular start to the NASCAR season. He also finished second last week at Phoenix.
"We weren't supposed to make it," Earnhardt said. "We were trying to save as much as we can and make it work, but we knew we were short. We wouldn't have finished second if we didn't have that strategy."