To paraphrase a sports cliché, races are not won on paper. Yet it was paper that cost Brad Keselowski a victory the last time the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series was at Pocono Raceway.

Keselowski appeared to be on his way to winning the Pocono 400 eight weeks ago when, with eight laps remaining, a stray piece of trash latched itself onto the front grill of his No. 2 Ford. That caused the engine temperature to drastically rise.Concerned that his motor may expire, Keselowski ducked behind the lapped car of Danica Patrick with five laps to go, hoping that the change in air current might dislodge the debris.When he did that, however, Dale Earnhardt Jr. swooped past him for the lead and went on to win the race. Keselowski had to settle for second."We did what we needed to do to put ourselves in position at the end," Keselowski's crew chief Paul Wolfe said. "Then you have something like a piece of debris, something totally out of your control, get on the grill. It puts you in a tough situation of what to do. You hope for the best. Obviously, Brad tried to get the debris off. Unfortunately, it didn't play out the way he was hoping."Now, Keselowski and Wolfe come back to Pocono this weekend, seeking some redemption in the GoBowling.com 400. Some people might not understand how something as simple as a hot dog wrapper could derail a 3,475-pound stock car. Wolfe explained that in order to maximize every bit of speed out of the car, they try to close up as much of the air-intake area as possible."It adds down force, which is grip," Wolfe said. "It also takes drag out of the race car, which is straightaway speed. With the long straightaways that Pocono has, the more we can close that opening, it's worth a lot of speed."At the same time, teams are told by the engineers what the temperature limits of the engine should be. So they push it right to that limit with a little bit of a cushion. But if something like a piece of paper or plastic bag winds up blocking even a small portion of that opening, it causes the engine temperature to rapidly rise. Then, it's only a matter of time before the engine expires if the debris is not removed."It's a fine line," Wolfe said. "People ask why we put ourselves so close to the limit. That's just NASCAR racing. That's how competitive it is. If we didn't put ourselves right to that limit, we wouldn't have been leading the race. We'd be running 10th to 15th. That's not what we're about. We're out there to win. To do that, you have to push the limits."While what happened at Pocono was disappointing, Keselowski and his team recovered nicely. Three weeks later, he won at Kentucky. Two weeks after that, he was victorious at New Hampshire.Also, Keselowski has been stellar in NASCAR's new knockout qualifying format. He has nine front-row starts, including three poles. Although he is currently third in the point standings behind Jeff Gordon and Earnhardt Jr., Keselowski's three wins he also triumphed at Las Vegas in March put him atop the grid for the Chase for the Sprint Cup over the final 10 races.That affords Wolfe and Keselowski the opportunity to try some things in the next six races that might help them in the Chase to win another championship like they did in 2012. It allows them to push even more limits."I like where we're at right now," Wolfe said. "We're getting down to the closing races before the Chase starts. The challenge now is being able to continue to push forward and find a little bit more."Every race, when you have adversity that you go through, it makes you stronger and you learn from it. We definitely did. That being said, I think we have a real solid race team. We're putting ourselves in position every week to win these races. I feel good heading back to Pocono this week."