FanHouse Penske Racing

It's got to be tough to be in Brad Keselowski's shoes.

The full-time Nationwide Series driver has shown to be one of the brightest up and coming stars in NASCAR, and his surprise Sprint Cup victory at Talladega only added to the hype. Consider that he's got the best shot as a non-Cup regular to overtake Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards for the Nationwide points title and his 3 wins in 2009, and you're looking at a guy who's turned plenty of heads in Cup ownership.

Reports say that Penske Racing has agreed to put him in the No. 12 Cup car for 2010, but how well he'd do there as a full-time driver is very much up in the air.

Penske Racing's Ryan Briscoe needed every inch of the Kentucky Speedway top groove Saturday night to pull out a win over winless Ed Carpenter in the Meijer Indy 300, though that's not what people will remember.

The biggest story won't be Briscoe's triumphant return to victory lane in 2009 or how narrowly close the Tony George-owned Vision Racing team with Carpenter came to winning his first career race in some 94 tries.

Instead, the racing that the IRL IndyCar Series had become known for seemed to return with a bang in the hills of Sparta, Ky., thanks to a few rule changes for the series.

Let's take a quick glance at some of the Richmond post-race storylines:

"We lost the brakes."

Jimmie Johnson, as Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway proved, isn't the racing robot with a switch stuck on "Dominate" we've come to think he is after three-straight Sprint Cup titles. Nope, not even at a track where he's won three of the last four events before Saturday night's race.

In fact, it was an all-around miserable night for the No. 48 after brake problems caused him to spin once, get caught up in another crash and then race the rest of the way with a damaged race car. Unfortunately for the rest of the competition, his 36th-place finish won't be a barometer of his 2009 season.

There was no celebratory fence climbing, victory lane to visit or mirror ball trophy to hoist, but two-time Indy 500 winner and "Dancing With the Stars" champ Helio Castroneves scored the biggest victory of his life Friday when a Miami jury acquitted him of federal tax evasion charges that could have sent him to prison for six years.

And so this weekend, Castroneves will be seeing checkers instead of stripes.

Minutes after the early Friday afternoon verdict, his longtime racing strategist, Tim Cindric, sent Castroneves a text message: "We're ready for you" to which Castroneves responded, "I'm coming man."

And just like that, a Team Penske plane was immediately dispatched to Miami to transport Castroneves to the IndyCar Series race in Long Beach, Calif. where he will compete Sunday.

A Miami jury has acquitted two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves on six counts of federal tax evasion and deadlocked on the final charge of conspiracy.

His sister and business manager, Katiucia Castroneves and sports attorney Alan Miller were also acquitted. The jury was hung on one charge for Katiucia.

It marked the end to a six-week trial and more than six days of deliberation which included calls for a mistrial from Castroneves' defense team.

IndyCar driver, and perhaps more notably the former champion of TV's Dancing with the Stars, Helio Castroneves will have to wait at least two more days to learn the fate of his future.

The two-time Indianapolis 500 champion and driver for the esteemed Penske Racing operation faces charges of tax evasion, along with his sister Katitucia and attorney Alan Miller for what the Internal Revenue Service says was millions of dollars worth of evaded and unpaid tax returns.

And Friday, after both the prosecution and the defense finished their final statements, the jury deliberated for over two hours before closing up shop for the weekend.

It wasn't a great week and change to be the assistant of Sprint Cup Series driver Kurt Busch after the Las Vegas native won the series' last outing two weeks ago at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Thanks to a nameless, peculiar victory lap Busch unveiled after the win by driving his No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge in reverse in the correct counter-clockwise fashion for a full lap, ideas poured from all corners of the NASCAR world on what the lap should be called.

And because, you know, that's what people in NASCAR do, Busch announced Friday that the lap's official title will be the "Unwind Lap".

He may have ended the day going backwards, but Kurt Busch did just about everything right to stay up front Sunday.

As a result, Busch earned his first victory of 2009 in the Sprint Cup Series' Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

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Local boy done good, and so local town is gonna recognize.

South Bend, Ind.'s pride and joy -- other than that university with "Touchdown Jesus" -- Ryan Newman got the toast of city officials and the local media on Thursday afternoon as the city officially renamed a portion of Lincoln Way to "Newman Way".

Unfortunately, that stretch of road has a speed limit of 45mph, which Newman joked about raising during the press conference. Boy, that Newman, he's a funny guy.

Couldn't South Bend at least let him get a road with a 55mph speed limit? If not, make the whole thing much more humorous by giving Newman a school zone at, say, 25mph. Now that's funny.

Consider Jimmie Johnson the new Martinsville master.

Johnson took Sunday's Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway for his 30th career victory over Ryan Newman and Hendrick teammate Jeff Gordon. He now follows Gordon in the Chase for the Nextel Cup by 53 points with just four races left.

It's the first time one driver has taken three-straight at Martinsville since Rusty Wallace did it in 1994-95.

Late in the race, cautions were the story and likely affected Jeff Gordon's chances -- who led a race high 168 laps -- at winning a possible third race in a row. Needing longer runs for his car to come in, Gordon was hampered by several yellows and was passed on a late restart by Newman.

Another caution flew leading to a final green-white-checkered finish that could have been more exciting had David Ragan not spun in turn one. NASCAR, like usual, waited to throw the caution flag and very nearly put a stalled Ragan in harm's way as the leaders flew into turn one before NASCAR threw the yellow, sealing Johnson's win.

Clint Bowyer, third in points, and Tony Stewart, fourth, finished 9th and 13th respectively. Bowyer now sits 110 points back of Gordon and Stewart holds a deficit of 244 points, unofficially.