Gifts for NASCAR Fans
Today, the NASCAR Cup Series made its annual stop at the Iowa Speedway, which is about a 30-minute drive away from downtown Des Moines. Iowa being a short flat oval designed after Richmond, a lot of eyes were on the Penske Fords considering their dominance on those types of tracks. Blaney and Cindric both rolled off inside the top 10 while Joey Logano started in 14th. Josh Berry, driving their satellite car, the No. 21 for the Wood Brothers, rolled off in 12th. Considering his mastery on short tracks, the expectations were high today.
Meanwhile, the fight to make the NASCAR Playoffs was on! Bubba’s win last week at the Brickyard really shook things up around the cutline. After today, only three races remain in the regular season. Who rose to the occasion and who was floundering around? Let’s break it down. Here is everything that went down in the Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol at Iowa Speedway.
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Keselowski was able to maintain his lead to start the final stage. Shortly after going back green, there was a stack up. This resulted in Denny Hamlin spinning around. He was able to keep from hitting the wall. Due to this caution, we saw a number of cars come down pit road to top off. It was clear that they were going to attempt to stretch it to the end. These drivers included polesitter Chase Briscoe, Erik Jones, and Chris Buescher. Meanwhile, the leaders stayed out.
We restarted once more, and again Keselowski rocketed out front. We got another caution as Carson Hocevar got loose and got into Zane Smith, sending the No. 38 around. During this caution, race leader Brad Keselowski pitted, putting him on a similar strategy as the drivers who pitted in the last caution break. Also pitting was Kyle Busch, who had grown to really like his No. 8 Cheddar’s Chevy. This put Ryan Blaney in the lead.
William Byron and Chase Briscoe cycled out front. Low on fuel, they battled while trying to save as much as they could. At 20 laps to go, Byron had a 1-second lead over Briscoe. The No. 19 had a half-second advantage over Keselowski, but that gap was shrinking. With 10 laps to go, the No. 24 team was in dire straits. By far, Byron was the lowest on fuel. With the lead he had, he started to run half-throttle on the straights in order to save as much gas as possible. Meanwhile, Ryan Blaney was good on fuel. From 4th, he ran the leaders down. Against all odds, Byron was able to hold them off. He even had enough left in the tank to do a frontstretch burnout. William Byron, the regular-season points leader, scored his second win of the season, his first since the Daytona 500.
For most of the opening stage, the top 3 runners were under a blanket and locked in a hard battle for the race lead. A majority of the stage was led by William Byron. However, his pace dropped off as he caught the rear of the field and started to lap cars. This allowed Brad Keselowski and Austin Cindric to get by him for the first and second positions. The laps wound down and Brad Keselowski went on to win his first stage of the year. Despite the points collected, Brad K. was still in a must-win situation to make the postseason.
Keselowski had a slow pit stop during the stage break. This resulted in him dropping down to 4th. Meanwhile, polesitter Chase Briscoe took advantage of his pit stall to win the race off pit road. Briscoe led just 40 of the next laps before Keselowski ran him down and took over the lead. From this point, it was clear that Bad Brad had the car to beat. We had a long green flag run before a couple of single-car isolated incidents triggered cautions. At one point, SVG spun. Ty Dillon and Todd Gilliland got together, triggering a caution as Dillon backed into the wall. Despite all of that, Keselowski survived a cycle of pit stops to cycle back to the race lead.
Keselowski went on to sweep both stages of the race. In a must-win situation for his Playoff hopes, he was looking to run a perfect race and win it all.
Undeniably, Brad Keselowski had the best and fastest car today. Unfortunately, he was just sky of capitalizing as this devolved into a fuel mileage race. On the bright side, he did clock the Xfinity Fastest Lap. Therefore, he receives one bonus point.
The following are the unofficial race results for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway. Once postrace inspection is complete and the results become official, this list will be updated.
UPDATE: All cars cleared post-race inspection with no issues. Therefore, these results are now official. William Byron scored his second win of the 2025 Cup Series season.
The following drivers have clinched Playoff berths by winning during the regular season.
That does it for us, Daily Downforce readers! What did you think of this fuel mileage race out in Iowa? How did your driver do, and how did this race affect their playoff bids? Let us know what you think by commenting and sharing on all of our socials and Discord. We only have three races left before the Playoffs! Next week, we’re back to turning left and right as NASCAR makes their annual stop up at Watkins Glen.
Be sure to keep tuning back in here at DailyDownforce.com for all the latest news and rumors fresh out of the NASCAR garage.
