Keselowski's good breaks outweigh bad luck

With a car that looked like it had just run at Martinsville instead of Auto Club Speedway, Brad Keselowski somehow finished second in the Auto Club 400.

"We were tore all to hell," Keselowski said. "Gosh, that's unfortunate. Got tore up there really early in the race. Went all the way to the back, just clawed all the way up to second. I don't know if we had anything for Kyle (Larson, the winner) and those guys. Car was tore up pretty bad. To get that kind of finish is respectable. Certainly, we wanted to win, felt like we had a shot to do just that. Didn't come together.

"That's the way it goes sometimes when you have a 36-race season. You're going to have some adversity and days that don't go your way. That's the way it was for us today, but we made the most of it, so I'm proud of my guys."

Keselowski was also working without crew chief Paul Wolfe, who was serving a one-race suspension after the No. 2 car failed post-race heights and measures last weekend in Phoenix. Sunday, it didn't take long for things to look like it was going to be an uphill battle for Keselowski and interim crew chief Brian Wilson.

Coming to the green flag on the initial start of the 400-mile event, Keselowski was hit from behind as the inside lane stacked up when second-place starter Denny Hamlin didn't get going.

"I got ran into the back of," Keselowski said. "It did a lot of damage to the car. We were in a lot of trouble, starting to free all through the field, then I got ran over again. I'm not really sure who, why, what. I haven't seen any of that."

Jimmie Johnson tagged Keselowski coming out of Turn 4 on lap 5, sending the No. 2 spinning through the infield grass. After falling a lap down, Keselowski received the free pass at the conclusion of the first stage.

The Team Penske driver spent the next 135 laps picking his way through the field. Just don't ask Keselowski how he did it.

"That's a good question," Keselowski said. "Glad I got the race on the DVR, so I can see it. The last few restarts were obviously key for us. We seemed to get settled into about 10th there, maybe seventh or eighth. Then kind of just executed the last few restarts. Good pit calls and so forth.

"Good timing with the yellow [flags]. We caught a few breaks, for sure, and made good adjustments to our car to make up for the damage. It takes a little bit of everything: Good execution, good work by the team, and a little bit of luck on the last few yellows."