Brad Keselowski held off a furious charge from Kyle Busch on the final lap to win Saturday's Kroger On Track For The Cure 250 Nationwide Series race at Memphis Motorsports Park.
Matt Kenseth got into the back of Steve Wallace and put Wallace into a spin in the closing laps, which set up a green-white-checkered finish. As Keselowski and Busch headed to the finish line, Busch moved to the inside of Keselowski and bumped into him. Keselowski managed to hold on and cross the line 0.090 ahead of Busch for the win.
"It felt like I was getting nudged all the way around," Keselowski said. "The tires were so loose."
Keselowski, who's heading to the Sprint Cup Series next year to drive the No.12 Dodge for Penske Racing, picked up his fourth victory of the season and the sixth of his Nationwide career.
His aggressive driving on the 0.75-mile track led to several incidents, including one with Carl Edwards in the closing laps.
"That's short track racing," Keselowski said. "I got into the back of Carl and that was the one I feel worse about. I didn't know he was going to make that move."
Keselowski received a $25,000 bonus from series title sponsor Nationwide Insurance for winning the fourth and final "Dash 4 Cash" event in the inaugural year of the bonus program. He also collected a $50,000 award from the insurance company for accumulating the most points during the four races.
Busch's second-place finish allowed him to pad his lead to 215 points over Edwards with just three races to go.
"I should be happy with what we had here with a second-place finish," Busch said. "We didn't have the car that shouldn't have finished in the top-10, but I broke another record and lost a lot of money today."
Edwards rebounded nicely from his spin to finish sixth.
"I hope it was just a racing deal," Edwards said. "I like Brad a lot. He was probably out there thinking, 'hey, I'm going to wreck him.' But he probably didn't give me the space either."
Jason Leffler, Mike Bliss and rookie Brendan Gaughan completed the top-five.
Scott Wimmer finished seventh, followed by David Reutimann, Stephen Leicht and Landon Cassill, who made his first series start since October 2008 at Phoenix. Cassill won rookie-of-the-year honors on the circuit last year.
The race featured 14 cautions, including one for a horrifying crash that involved Eric McClure. Michael McDowell hit McClure from behind, sending him hard into the wall.
McClure was not injured, but needed assistance while exiting his battered car.
"I'm a little bit sore, but I think I'll be okay," McClure said.
Source
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment