Brad Keselowski uses aggressive approach to bull his way to victory at Memphis
If the Kroger On Track For The Cure 250 Nationwide Series race is any indication, Brad Keselowski won’t be pushed around when he moves full time to the Sprint Cup Series next year.
Heck, if the Memphis race was an indication, it’ll be Keselowski who will be doing the pushing and shoving.
To say Keselowski was aggressive at Memphis Motorsports Park is a little like saying Elvis liked Cadillacs. And nemesis Denny Hamlin was nowhere to be found.
Was Keselowski driving dirty when he punted Carl Edwards? Or were they simply mistakes of judgment?
Was Keselowski making a bump-and-run move on Mike Bliss? Or was he driving over his head?
Only Keselowski knows for sure. But he certainly was aggressive in winning his fourth Nationwide race of the season.
How aggressive? Early in the race, he charged into Turn 1, perhaps a little too hard, and got into the left-rear of Justin Allgaier, causing the rookie to spin and bringing out the third caution.
Later, not long after a restart with less than 100 laps to go, Keselowski nudged Bliss, who slipped and slid up the track, losing several positions.
And finally, with 14 laps to go, Keselowski was racing in a pack when Edwards suddenly turned sharp left and spun, triggering a multicar crash and the race’s 12th yellow flag.
Still, another daring three-wide move to the inside of front-row restarters Michael Annett and Tony Raines got Keselowski the lead, and he was able to hold off a charging
Kyle Busch during a green-white-checkered finish to win the race.
“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 favor by that. It’s not like I came out on top on 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 contacts didn’t win me the race. They actually hurt.”
He was talking about his race car, of course. But could he also have been talking about his reputation?
Bliss and Edwards weren’t angry after the race, but they weren’t showering Keselowski with praise, either.
“I don’t know,” Bliss said. “The 88 about wrecked me getting into [Turn] 3, and then on that restart – it was kind of, whatever. I’ll just remember that. If that’s the way he wants to do that stuff, I guess that’s the way I do it.”
Given another chance to react to Keselowski, Bliss said he likes the younger driver.
“I don’t know,” said Bliss, who led the most laps in the race (85). “Some people take success different. I’m afraid it’s going to go to him. But I like Brad. I don’t want to say nothing bad about him. He won the race.”
Edwards had a nearly identical reaction.
“I hope it’s just a racing deal,” Edwards said. “I like Brad, I like him a lot. He probably didn’t go out there thinking, ‘I’m gonna wreck him.’ But he probably didn’t give me any space either.”
Edwards had a fast car, leading twice for 65 laps. Both he and Bliss led more laps than Keselowski’s 34.
“I’ll talk to Brad about it,” Edwards said via ESPN. “It’s racing. … I have done it. We’ve all done it. We’ve all wrecked each other. Far be it for me to stand here and say, ‘Shame on him,’ because I’ve wrecked plenty of people.
“I’ll talk to Brad about it. If … that’s how we’re going, then that’s how we’ll race. If he wants it to be exciting for the fans, I can make it exciting.”
The somewhat controversial moves came in another wild Memphis race, with 14 cautions for 72 of the race’s 250 laps. All the cautions made for some disjointed strategy, though crew chief Tony Eury Sr., played it perfectly for Keselowski.
“Some of those guys that stopped and put on tires, I thought we were in trouble,” Eury Sr. said. “But six years in a row, this race has finished green-white-checkered.
The crashing wasn’t done, so we ended up getting a caution and getting tires on there.”
That came under the race’s 11th yellow flag with 22 laps remaining. Annett and Raines stayed out on old tires, with Keselowski restarting sixth. Soon after, Edwards spun for another restart, with Keselowski fifth on the inside.
As the green waved, Keselowski charged to the inside, getting by Bliss. Still with momentum, he then darted under both Annett and Raines to take the lead for good.
“It felt pretty cool in the seat,” Keselowski said. “I’d like to see what it looked like on TV.”
It looked pretty good.
The rest of the race? You be the judge.
