Nationwide Series – Kroger On Track For The Cure 250

Aggressive driving was the key to Saturday’s win for Brad Keselowski at Memphis Motorsports Park!

Keselowski had to hold off series points leader, Kyle Busch, on a green-white-checkered finish to score his 6th career win.

Photo Credit: John Sommers II/Getty Images
“Today, I was very aggressive and put myself in a lot of those situations that led to contact,” Keselowski said. “Two of them led to spins. I didn’t do myself any favors by that. It’s not like I came out on top with that. I tore my car up and slowed it down. It wasn’t like that was what won me the race. What won me the race was being aggressive throughout. The specific contact didn’t win me the race. They actually hurt.”

“It was just good hard racing,” Keselowski said.

Carl Edwards suffered from ‘good hard racing’. Edwards led twice for 65 laps over the last half of the race. With 15 laps to go, he went for a spin after a little help from Keselowski’s bumper. After the race, Edwards said he was not mad at Keselowski. Edwards fought back for a 6th place finish, but lost valuable points on his championship hopes.

On the restart after the caution for Edwards’ wreck, Keselowski made a very daring move for the lead. Restarting 5th, Keselowski passed 4 cars to get to the front. “It felt pretty cool in the seat,” he said. “I’d like to see what it looked like on TV. I thought we could get a run on them.”

There was an extra incentive for winning as Saturday’s race was the last of four Nationwide Insurance Dash 4 Cash races. Keselowski won $25,000 for the victory and an additional $50,000 for scoring the most points over those four Dash 4 Cash races.

Keselowski seemed more impressed with the Elvis trophy he picked up for the win. It was said that he carried it to the media center for the post-race news conference and was planning on personally taking it home with him.

Photo Credit: John Sommers II/Getty Images

“I’ve got this Elvis—man, I really wanted that trophy bad, just as bad as I wanted the Dash 4 Cash,” Keselowski said. “To be able to finally get it today is a special thing.”

Points leader Kyle Busch chased Keselowki across the finish. “I guess I should be ecstatic with a second-place finish,” Busch said and adding “Seeing as though we didn’t have a car that should have finished in the top-10. I gave it all I had on the last few laps. I could have spun him out and wrecked him, but I couldn’t put myself to do it.” It was Busch’s 27th top-10 finish this season. Busch leads the standing by 215 points over 2nd place, Carl Edwards.

Jason Leffler has been fighting a sinus infection over the week, but didn’t let it slow him down. Leffler finished third. “It’s always a matter of survival here,” Leffler said about the short track. “It’s that type of race track.”

After leading a race-high 85 laps, Mike Bliss finished his afternoon 4th. Brendan Gaughan was up front for 8 laps. He finished 5th. Carl Edwards, Scott Wimmer, David Reutimann, Stephen Leicht and Landon Cassill completed the top-10.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here.

There were 14 cautions for 72 laps and 13 lead changes among 8 drivers: J. Allgaier # 1-34; M. Bliss 35-62; C. Edwards 63-68; B. Keselowski 69-86; M. Bliss 87-93; K. Busch 94-95; M. Bliss 96-126; K. Wallace 127-128; K. Busch 129-143; M. Bliss 144-162; C. Edwards 163-221; B. Gaughan # 222-229; M. Annett # 230-238; B. Keselowski 239-254