Capping a wild, unpredictable day of racing, Brad Keselowski was dominant on two late race re-starts to power his way to victory at the Kroger on Track for the Cure 250 at Memphis Motorsports Park in a photo finish over Kyle Busch.
The race was marred by 14 cautions for a total of 72 laps. This is the sixth consecutive year that the Memphis race was ended under a green/white/checkered one-lap restart.
Keselowski, in the Delphi Chevrolet, quietly stayed in the top 10 for most of the day, as his more celebrated foes, such as Mike Bliss, Busch, and Carl Edwards, took turns running out front.
Keselowski, though, was the one to take advantage of the upheavals over the last 25 laps, taking the lead with a daring pass against Bliss on lap 240 to take over third, reeling in the flagging leaders on spent tires, and holding on for dear life as Busch pushed the eventual race winner to his absolute limits.
First was the daring move on Bliss:
“I felt like I could make a move on (the leaders),” he explained, “it was just a question of what move to make after I got the run on them.
“(Bliss) made a move and then gave me the spot. I thought it was pretty cool. We could have all gone down in the corner and wrecked, but once I got underneath him, he let me have it.”
Taking over first was a foregone conclusion.
“The two cars ahead of (Mike) didn’t have any tires, so it wasn’t real hard to get ahead of them.”
The late wrecks not only gave him the opportunity to keep fresh tires, it also gave the team an unexpected jump on the competition.
“I don’t know what it was about our deal,” he admitted, “but man, that thing would re-start!”
Coming out of turn four into the final backstretch, Keselowski was turned slightly sideways after a tap by Busch.
“I thought I was gonna wreck, to be honest,” he said in the post-race press conference. “I just caught it at the last minute and knew I was gonna have to run hard to the line. I couldn’t have beat him by more than two or three feet.”
Keselowski knew even before the final re-start who he was going to have to go through to salt away the victory: Kyle Busch.
“There’s only so much you can do to prevent (a loss),” he confided afterwards. “Kyle had a really good car. I watched it when I was behind him. I knew he was gonna be a force to be reckoned with; he’s a good driver, he’s got a great car, and he got to me. He did all he could do without wrecking me and ran me hard.
“It came down to making the right moves in traffic. I made some good moves, I made some bad moves, and at the end of the day it worked out.”
Crew chief Tony Eury told the assembled media that it was a struggle for his team all day.
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