But, in some ways, he has nothing to show for it.
The Team Penske driver is in a 12-way tie for first going into Round 2 as the new Chase format has reset the points to 3,000 for all 12 drivers.
Under the former format, Keselowski would have a four-point lead on second-place Joey Logano and a 57-point lead on 12th-place Kasey Kahne.
Now he has no lead in a Chase where points are reset after every three events to set up a four-driver showdown at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the championship going to the best finisher among the final four.
Logano, who also has a Chase win, is even with Keselowski. Kahne is even with Logano and Keselowski as the second round of the Chase begins this weekend at Kansas Speedway.
“You win a race? Well, that was great, three races later, that means nothing,” Keselowski said Tuesday. “You win another race? All right that was great, three races later, that means nothing. You win another race? All right, that was great, it means nothing.
“Damn. At some point, I’d like to be rewarded, but who wouldn’t? It’s still the same rules for everyone and as long as that’s the case, that’s all you can ask for.”
Keselowski had a win, a seventh and a second in the first three Chase races. There are four drivers still in the Chase who haven’t had a finish better than seventh and eight whom Keselowski has beaten each week.
But with the new format, Keselowski said there are no favorites and it’s time “to go do your job” and win.
“I knew the rules going in,” Keselowski said. “It’s different. It’s much, much harder to get a foothold on the Chase this year as far as a foothold on the top.”
Ryan Newman, who is winless this year and ninth in the Chase standings, doesn’t feel he should be even with Keselowski, and said NASCAR needs to be wary of trying to copy everything from other major sports.
“I don’t think it’s fair for them for a guy like me who hasn’t won a race at all this year to be equal to them going into this three-race bracket,” Newman said. “(It’s supposed) to put an emphasis on winning.
“We’re not other sports. This isn’t stick-and-ball. … We’ve made a really good living on being ourselves, and we can’t lose that sight.”
“That’s interesting, isn’t it?” Keselowski said. “But it is what it is.”
EARNHARDT PULLING FOR FAMILY FRIEND
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a Royals fan, and it’s not because he’s racing in Kansas City this weekend.
Royals manager Ned Yost has known Earnhardt since Earnhardt was 8 years old. Yost and Earnhardt’s father met on a hunting trip in the 1980s, and remained close friends. Yost’s uniform No. 3 is no coincidence — it’s to honor the seven-time Cup champion who died on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
“He’s a genuine guy with a genuine appreciation and friendship with my father,” Earnhardt said Friday at Kansas Speedway. “It means a lot to me that he follows me still to this day. I want to see him to do well as much.”
Earnhardt wasn’t just pandering to the Kansas City media with those comments. He tweeted a good-luck message to Yost prior to the Royals’ American League wild-card game Tuesday.
“Good luck to Ned Yost and his @Royals in the post season starting tonight. #OldFamilyFriend”
It’s been a good year for both Earnhardt and Yost. Earnhardt won the Daytona 500 and Yost invited him to spring training the next week when the drivers were in Phoenix, although Earnhardt couldn’t get there. Earnhardt has continued his success with two more wins and is among the 12 drivers remaining in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Yost has guided the Royals into the playoffs for the first time in 29 years. They won their wild-card game Tuesday and have a 1-0 lead on Anaheim in the American League Division Series.
Yost and Earnhardt Sr. became close friends while Yost was the bullpen coach for the Atlanta Braves in the mid-90s. Yost was such a big NASCAR fan that he served as a volunteer on Earnhardt’s Richard Childress Racing pit crew during the baseball offseason. He and Earnhardt often went hunting together when the NASCAR and baseball seasons were over.
“I read a couple of articles where he was real pleased with how we did at Daytona and knowing his friendship with my dad, it’s pretty cool that he’s watching me,” Earnhardt said. “That meant a really good deal to me.”
EARNHARDT GIRLFREIND PREPARING FOR HER OWN RACE
Earnhardt hasn’t been able to watch girlfriend Amy Reimann as she practices for the NASCAR drivers and girlfriends exhibition race next week at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The Better Half Dash, where drivers compete on the quarter-mile track on the CMS frontstretch next Thursday, is a fund raiser for racing ministry Motor Racing Outreach and Speedway Children’s Charities.
“She’s really, really, really nervous,” Earnhardt said. “She’s happy to be involved in it because of the cause and to be able to do something good. … She’s starting to kind of realize she might have bit off more than she can chew on the driving side of it.”
The women drive bandoleros, cars designed for 8-year-old kids who have go-kart experience and are ready to move on to a small version of a car. The cars weigh 550 pounds, have a 570cc motor and generate 30 horsepower.
Reimann has gotten help from Earnhardt spotter and former racer TJ Majors and also from Earnhardt brother-in-law and retired modified driver LW Miller.
“Her speeds are good,” Earnhardt said. “She’s not the slowest, she’s not the fastest. But she’s having a lot of fun.”
Other driver wives and girlfriends in the race include: Kristen Yeley, Ashton Bayne, Ashley Deihl Stremme, Ashley Allgaier, Angie Skinner and Denny Hamlin girlfriend Jordan Fish.
WHY BOWYER NAMED HIS BABY CASH
Clint Bowyer has a newborn baby named Cash.
It’s assumed he’s named after Johnny Cash, although Bowyer wouldn’t necessarily confirm exactly what he and his wife, Lorra, were thinking when they chose the name for the baby boy born on Tuesday.
“(It’s) for all the cash that he’s going to cost me over the years when he gets to racing cars or something,” Bowyer quipped Friday before practice at Kansas Speedway. “I’m going to try to put a guitar in his hand. … (Lorra) wouldn’t go for Cletus Bocephus. That’s the one that me and my friends came up with one night at the campfire, and she definitely was down on that.
“So we went with Cash.”
Bowyer talked about the euphoria of becoming a father — five days after the baby was due — calling it a “wild experience.”
“All of the sudden that little gremlin comes out of there and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is real,’” Bowyer said Friday. “I was probably not the norm as far as spectator in an event like that.
“In the room there, I was high-fiving people and I was kind of pushing the doctor out of the way at one point because I was trying to get a better view of him coming into the world. Of course the nurses are trying to hold me back and they’re like, ‘You can’t get that close.’ I’m like, ‘Get the hell out of my way, here he comes.’ It was a lot of fun. We were all laughing. But just an amazing experience.”
SMITH RE-SIGNS WITH JRM
Regan Smith seems content with a one-year deal to remain at JR Motorsports rather than continue to pursue a Sprint Cup ride for 2015.
Smith, second in the Nationwide Series standings behind teammate Chase Elliott, signed a new deal Tuesday to remain at JRM for a third consecutive year.
The 31-year-old Smith, who has 172 career Cup starts, has four Nationwide wins driving for JR Motorsports, owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., his sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller and Rick Hendrick.
“I’m fortunate to have a great place to call home and a great place to race at with good people, good sponsors and fast racecars,” Smith said. “As a driver, that’s something you always look for and is important. You want to have an opportunity to go out there and showcase what you can do every week.”
Contributor: Bob Pockrass
