CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The longest race of the NASCAR Cup Series season ended up being one of the shortest as rain postponed the second half of Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with Christopher Bell being in the right place at the right time and being declared the winner.

The race, which was scheduled for 400 laps, was halted after 249 circuits due to lightning and rain. NASCAR made an attempt to dry the track, but the conditions made the process slow, forcing the sanctioning body to call the race

It ended up being a case of ‘what might have been’ for Ford’s Brad Keselowski, who may have had the fastest car, but ended up second to Bell when the weather hit. Keselowski said after the race that he passed Bell on a couple of occasions as the runs went longer and that’s what he needed again, but the timing didn’t work out.

Besides Keselowski, the other impressive Ford driver was Josh Berry, who finished 10th after leading seven laps and scored stage points throughout. He finished ninth in Stage 1 and 10th in Stage 2, matching Keselowski, who was eighth in the first stage and fifth in the second.  

The NASCAR Cup Series continues next weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway, also known as Gateway, on Sunday, June 2 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

NCS RACE TOP-10 FINISHERS
1st - Christopher Bell
2nd – Brad Keselowski
3rd – William Byron
4th – Tyler Reddick
5th – Denny Hamlin
6th – Ty Gibbs
7th – Chase Elliott
8th – Ross Chastain
9th – Alex Bowman
10th – Josh Berry

REMAINING FORD FINISHERS
14th – Joey Logano
16th – Michael McDowell
17th – Todd Gilliland
20th – Austin Cindric
22nd – Justin Haley
23rd – Chris Buescher
25th – Chase Briscoe
26th – Ryan Preece
32nd – Harrison Burton
34th – Kaz Grala
37th – BJ McLeod
38th – Noah Gragson
39th – Ryan Blaney

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – PRESS CONFERENCE –
TAKE US THROUGH YOUR NIGHT.  
“It’s pretty disappointing.  I felt like we had a car to win the race.  We kind of ran down the 20 car twice and just didn’t get to see it play out.  So, it kind of slipped through our fingers there.  I would have liked to have just had more laps and ran the Coke 600.  I think we ran the Coke 350 today, but, all in all, I’m really happy with our performance.  The car was really fast.  Our pit stops were phenomenal.  We just didn’t get to see it through.  I’m bummed for our team.  I’m bummed for everybody, but the weather is what the weather is.”

WITH KYLE LARSON NOT MAKING A LAP IT OPENS UP THE REGULAR SEASON CHAMPIONSHIP HUNT.  DO YOU FEEL THAT WILL PLAY A SIGNIFICANT ROLE IN HOW THAT UNFOLDS? 
"Yes, this is a big point scoring race normally because you have four stages and I don’t think we’re gonna play those points out.  I don’t know.  We’ll have to get some kind of ruling on that, so it probably actually played to his favor in that regard with the rain, but, still, we scored good points today.  I think we moved up to 10th, which is nice and the highest Ford, which is nice, but I think we had a lot more capability than what we were able to get out of it.”

IS THIS RFK REALLY STARTING TO SHOW THE POTENTIAL YOU HAVE THIS SEASON? 
“Yeah, it was good to be that fast.  You want to make it count with wins.  You don’t want to be a sore loser for second, but it stings because I know we had a car to win today and if it doesn’t hurt, you’re in the wrong business.  We’ve got a lot of work to do on our short track program and our road course program, but our mile-and-a-half stuff seems really good right now.”

YOU’VE WON THIS RACE AT A FULL DISTANCE BEFORE.  DID YOU TALK OVER THE RADIO ABOUT THAT LAST GREEN FLAG RUN ABOUT THE WEATHER? 
“I think everybody knew the situation.  I can’t claim ignorance to that.  We were going as hard as we could.  I feel like I needed another 10 laps or so to be able to make a pass, but that’s not how it played out.”

WHEN THE LAST CAUTION CAME OUT YOU KEPT SAYING ‘I NEED LONGER RUNS’.  WHAT PREVENTED YOU FROM HAVING ENOUGH TO GET BY THE 20? 
“I think we had more speed than him, but there was a pretty big air advantage that he had and as laps would go on the aero grip gets displaced by the mechanical grip and then we could take him, but the leader – I feel like the 20 car was the second-best car today, but he was still the second-best car, so to be able to displace him we needed him to fall off and that’s only gonna happen with laps and catching the back of the pack and we just didn’t get that.”

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Menards/Duracell Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“I definitely wish we would have been able to pick the race back up. We had a really well-executed day going up until we had to stay out on some older tires and that kind of put us behind. We were kind of in the middle of recovering from that, but past that, I'm happy with our improvement all weekend; we just didn't have enough speed to run up front. We had a really tight car all race, we just need more laps to work on it.”

JOSH BERRY, No. 4 Overstock Ford Mustang Dark Horse – 
“It was a really solid day>  We qualified well and maintained our track position.  Rodney made some really good adjustments to the car overnight.  We were just really solid.  We’re just getting better and better, and tonight was a night to be really proud of.”

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 BodyArmor Flash I.V. Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RIGHT FRONT TIRE?  
“I don’t know.  We’ll have to look if I hit something or, I don’t know.  I just went into three getting up to speed and blew a tire and hit the fence.  It’s an unfortunate end to our night.  That sucks.  We’re not even halfway and just wanting to work on your stuff all night.  I thought we were getting it a little better here and there, but won’t get a shot.”

WHAT HAPPENED? 
“I just came off pit road and put tires on it and I don’t know if I ran over something, but one of them blew.  I blew a tire going into three, so I don’t know if I hit something or what, but it’s kind of odd.  We’ll have to go back and take a look at it.  It stinks.  That’s two unfortunate weekends in a row.  I thought we at least had a shot to get better.  I’d run close to the top 10 and maybe top five, but we’ll get through it.  We’ve just got to hopefully put together a good race next week.”

NOAH GRAGSON, No. 10 Bass Pro Shops Winchester Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
WAS THERE CONTACT WITH THE 47?  
“Yeah, he just misjudged his run and got us in the left rear, just a miscalculation.  It sucks, but the sun will come up tomorrow.”

CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang Dark Horse – 
“Overall, it was kind of just a frustrating night.  I felt like everytime we would get track position, we would end up losing it, whether it was a restart not going our way or pit road.  I felt like if we could ever just put it all together we had a car capable of running anywhere from eighth to 12th, but everybody from eighth on back ran the same speed, so wherever you came out on a restart or off pit road is kind of where you ran.  We’ve got to clean everything up and definitely felt like we should have finished way better than where we did tonight from a speed standpoint.  We just have to figure out our execution.”

NASCAR XFINITY Series (May 25 – Charlotte)

• Ryan Sieg finished seventh to top all Ford drivers in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
• Noah Gragson, making his first start with Rette Jones Racing, had a 10th-place run.
• Cole Custer was the fastest in Friday’s practice session, but tangled with Austin Hill while battling for fifth and hit the wall with 17 laps to go. That resulted in a 32nd-place finish.
• The XFINITY Series will head out west next weekend and race at Portland International Raceway on Saturday, June 1 at 4:30 p.m. ET.

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (May 24 – Charlotte)

• Ben Rhodes led Ford with a fifth-place finish Friday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
• Jake Garcia posted the first top-10 finish since joining ThorSport as he ran sixth.
• Ty Majeski is the highest-ranked Ford driver in the point standings (4th) while Ben Rhodes holds down the 10th position after 11 events.  
• The Truck Series will be the first half of a weekend doubleheader at World Wide Technology Raceway next weekend, taking the track on Saturday, June 1 at 1:30 p.m. ET.