Keller Ends Disappointing Season with Disappointing Finish

The 2003 NASCAR Busch Series season for Jason Keller and his ppc Racing / Albertson's Supermarkets / Northeastern Supply Company race team ended Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway the way the entire campaign can be characterized —DISAPPOINTING!

Struggling with an ill-handling race car from the start of the Ford 300 due to a broken left right front shock absorber and other gremlins, Keller lost a lap to the field just 74 laps into the 200-lap affair on the newly constructed, 1.5-mile oval as he vied for a championship with five other drivers.  Jason was never able to get that lap back, even after some major changes were made to his race car to solve the car's symmetry and balance problems that resulted in blistered tires, long pit stops and a day of driving near the rear of the field.

The end result was a disappointing, 24th place finish that prevented a title charge for Keller and a final, fifth place finish in the 2003 driver championship point battle.  That was earned by 20-year-old Brian Vickers who overcame some mid-race woes that at one point cost him a lap to post an 11th place finish to beat veteran David Green for the crown.  Green fought back from three laps in arrears to finish 9th and claim the second spot in points.  Green finished only 14 points behind Vickers and was just 32 and 35 tallies better than Ron Hornaday and Bobby Hamilton, Jr. who finished third and fourth, respectively, in final driver points.  Keller finished his point run in fifth, 109 behind champion Vickers.

Hamilton, Jr. actually made the biggest jump, vaulting over Keller and Scott Riggs to claim fourth place.   Hamilton, Jr. led a bunch of laps during the early going of Saturday's race before settling in for a third place race finish.  Hamilton, Jr. thus completed an amazing run over the last half of the season that saw his Team Marines organization come back from nearly 300 points behind the top point-getters to almost claim the championship.

Riggs, Keller's teammate at ppc Racing, was hit from behind on the event's second lap by rookie Busch Series driver Jon Wood heading into the second turn and crashed.  It resulted in a dismal, 41st place finish for Riggs and a drop from fifth to sixth in points for a driver who just three races ago was the point leader in what was the most competitive Busch Series championship race in history.

Kasey Kahne earned his first career victory, beating Martin Truex, Jr. to the checkers by several car lengths.

Keller has thus finished in the top five in Busch Series points in each of the last four seasons.  He finished the 2003 campaign with 4,528 points thanks to 10 top five finishes that included one victory, and 17 top tens.