Keselowski Wins First NASCAR Race at Nashville

Brad Keselowski picked up his first win in the Nationwide Series on Saturday night, and the first of the season for JR Motorsports, as he took the lead from points leader, Clint Bowyer, with just five laps remaining and then cruised on his way to victory, winning the Federated Auto Parts 300 at Nashville Superspeedway.

Keselowski set the stage for the finish of the race when he stayed out on the track on lap 79 of the 225 lap event as the rest of the leaders made their way down pit road, led by then race leader, Joey Logano. The call from Tony Eury Sr. put Keselowski on a completely different pit sequence than the rest of the field, and it proved to be a factor late in the race.

With the rest of the field making their final pit stops with 77 laps remaining, Keselowski made his with just 41 left, giving him tires that were 36 laps fresher than the rest of the field when the caution flew with just ten laps left. David Reutimann, who was leading the race at the time, was ambushed by Clint Bowyer on the restart, but a few laps later, it was Brad Keselowski making the pass for the lead, and he never looked back, as he went onto win the race and collect the first checkers of the season for JR Motorsports.

David Stremme and David Reutimann both went onto take position from Bowyer as they finished 2nd and 3rd, and Clint was relegated to 4th, followed by David Ragan in 5th. They were followed by the cars of Mike Wallace, Scott Wimmer, Kelly Bires, Landon Cassill, and Greg Biffle to complete the top-ten.

Joey Logano won the pole for Saturday’s race, marking only his second career start. He led 64 laps in the event and appeared to be an early favorite to win, but he got caught up in a 4-wide race through turn 2 that resulted in him getting clipped by Greg Biffle and slamming into the outside wall. He went onto finish 31st. His teammate, Kyle Busch, who is making an unprecedented tri-fecta run this weekend, finished three laps down in 20th.

Clint Bowyer remained atop the Nationwide standings, while Reutimann’s run was enough to bump him up two spots to second. Kyle Busch dropped a spot to third, and Carl Edwards’ thirteenth place run drops him down to fourth overall. Brad Keselowski remains in fifth.

Nationwide Series Standings (from nascar.com):

*Credit photo to Newscom.