Full Throttle

An aggressive Brad Keselowski won his fourth NASCAR Nationwide Series race of the season, banging his way to victory at Memphis Motorsports Park

Kyle Busch finished second in Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Memphis Motorsports Park, but still pulled away from his closest pursuer in what is clearly a three-man battle for the series title.

Brad Keselowski led twice for 34 laps to beat Busch, Jason Leffler, Mike Bliss and Brendan Gaughan in the Kroger 250 at the 0.75-mile track. The other top-10 finishers were Carl Edwards, Scott Wimmer, David Reutimann, Stephen Leicht and Landon Cassill.

Keselowski most prized possession was the last-in-its-series Elvis trophy that track officials award race winners. Keselowski carried it to the post-race news conference and planned on taking it with him on the plane ride home.

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

Keselowski, Gaughan, Wimmer, Leicht and Cassill were in Chevrolets. Busch, Leffler, Bliss and Reutimann raced Toyotas, and Edwards was in a Ford.

Keselowski was involved in at least three incidents in the race, the last when he bumped Carl Edwards with a handful of laps remaining.

Keselowski then got the lead when he whipped past the front row of Michael Annett and Tony Raines on a restart with 12 laps to go. He then held off NASCAR Nationwide points leader Kyle Busch on a green-white-checkered restart to secure the win.

Neither Edwards nor Bliss were that angry with Keselowski, though they both said if that’s the way he wants to race, they will race him the same way. Keselowski admitted to driving hard throughout 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 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.”

After of 32 of 35 races, Busch leads Edwards by 215 points and Keselowski by 257. Nobody else has a chance to even reach the top-three, much less challenge for the title. The tour has next weekend off before finishing on consecutive weekends in Fort Worth, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead, Fla.

NOTE: Keselowski won $25,000 in the final Nationwide Insurance Dash 4 Cash race of the 2009 season and the overall $50,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus for the highest cumulative points from the four NASCAR Nationwide Series stand-alone races in Nashville, Kentucky, Iowa and Memphis.

Joey Logano won the first two Dash 4 Cash races at Nashville Superspeedway and Kentucky Speedway. Logano did not run a full schedule in the Nationwide Series this year and was ineligible to win the bonus. Brad Keselowski took home the $75,000 rollover bonus after winning the US Cellular 250 at Iowa Speedway in August.