Keller Burps a Bit at Michigan; Finishes 23rd

Jason Keller's current charge up the NASCAR Busch Series points ladder took a momentary hit Saturday at Michigan International Speedway when an early race caution flag caught the Albertson's Supermarkets / Northeastern Supply Company race team with its pants down.  The end result?   A 23rd place finish to snap Keller's 4-race streak of top 10 finishes, two of them second place efforts.

Keller, who started the race in the 17th position, was running a comfortable 14th on lap 44 when his team elected to pit their #57 Ford Taurus just a couple of laps earlier than planned for his first, routine stop for tires and gas in the 125-lap race.  Joining Keller on pit road for green flag service were the race cars of Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton and Scott Wimmer.  Unfortunately, as the cars were just leaving pit road, the car of rookie driver Jamie Mosley spun in turn two to bring out the yellow flag, catching the four cars that pitted early a lap down.

Kahne, who was the pole sitter and came off of pit road first of the four cars that pitted, did manage to race around and actually beat then leader Tony Stewart to the stripe to get his lap back, but that was not the case for Keller who never did get that lost lap back.

With championship contenders Scott Riggs and David Green both finishing well ahead of Jason in the fifth and fourth positions, respectively, Keller lost 61 points to each of them to drop 96 points off the pace.   Jason did hold onto the third spot in the standings behind leader Riggs and runner-up Green but also saw his advantages over Brian Vickers (the 19th place finisher) and Bobby Hamilton Jr., 3rd) cut to just 52 and 196 points, respectively, with 11 races left on the 2003 schedule.  Ron Hornaday, who is fourth in the standings ahead of Vickers and Hamilton, Jr., finished behind Keller in 28th place, so Jason was able to increase his command over Hornaday by a few points to 48.

Kevin Harvick, the 2001 Busch Series champion and one of 10 Winston Cup Series regulars who competed in Saturday's Busch Series test, was the winner for the third time this season when rain shortened the race to 110 laps.  Stewart, the reigning Winston Cup Series champion, finished the race in the 11th spot but only after dominating the affair in a car owned by Dale Earnhardt, Jr..  Stewart led 83 laps but had pitted just a few laps before the rains came to lose out in comparable fashion to Keller.

Jason and his ppc Racing crew will look to get back some of the points they did lose and regain momentum next Friday night when the Busch Series runs at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee in the Food City 250.  This prime time event will be televised live on TNT starting at 8 p.m.