Hampton, GA (93.7 The Fan) - Team Penske's Brad Keselowski beat Joe Gibbs Racing's Martin Truex Jr. by 2.18-seconds to win the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday.
Keselowski passed teammate Joey Logano for the lead on lap 293 and led the final 32-laps to give the Ford Mustang its first win in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
The win was Keselowski's first of the year, 28th of his Cup Series career and his 60th with Penske, which passes Mark Donahue for most wins in team history.
"When you go back and know what Mark meant to our team as we were building it over time and really set a mark that, in some cases, we thought nobody would ever beat it," said Penske. "Brad's had that in his windshield, he's been looking at that now for a year and he said that this was the year he was going to make it happen, so I congratulate him."
"All wins are special, some just mean more," said Keselowski. "And this one is special for a number of reasons, whether it be the win record at Team Penske, that's certainly very special to me or to win the first race after a major rule change means a lot to me personally."
"Really proud of the team," said Truex Jr. "I really wanted that first Atlanta win."
Chip Ganassi Racing's Kurt Busch finished third after starting 8th.
"To finish third in our second outing together and to run with the 'who's who' of the sport, it just shows that Ganassi's got the right stuff," said Busch. "All in all, for us to get jelled together to learn what 'loose' and 'tight' was, but man I just struggled in turns 3 and 4. It's a good third place finish, we'll take it."
Busch's CRG teammate Kyle Larson won the first Stage of the race and led a race-high 142-laps but was penalized for speeding on pit road trying to beat Kevin Harvick out of the pits first. Larson was penalized and sent to the tail end of the field but rallied to finish 11th.
Harvick may have benefitted from Larson's penalty, but he didn't capitalize as he fell to fourth at the finish.
Harvick's Stewart Haas Racing teammate Clint Bowyer rounded out the top 5.
The average speed of the race was 142.626 mph and was slowed by 5-caution flags for 30-laps.
Denny Hamlin, on the strength of his Daytona 500 victory, sits atop the points standings after two races with 87-points. Harvick is second with 79-points. Kyle Busch is third with 78, Larson is 4th with 77. Logano is 5th with 75-points and Keselowski is now 6th with 72-points.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series next race is March 3, 2019 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
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