Nascar Racing Online

“Busch took advantage of Brad being on probation and wrecked him. It isn’t fair!”

That is how the pro-Brad Keselowski – or rather, the anti-Kyle Busch sect of NASCAR fans has expressed it’s displeasure with the Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s method of winning Friday night’s Food City 250 at the Bristol Motor Speedway. In their view, Busch, knowing full and well that Keselowski would be unable to pay back Busch’s “dump and run” without risking NASCAR sanction, exploited Keselowski’s plight and sent the Penske Racing Dodge for a ride.

First of all, to think that – on a track where laps are turned at a 16-second clip, or faster - Busch had enough time to process that thought and act upon it as quickly as the entire situation on lap 219 played out is ludicrous.

Second of all, even if he had, it is a situation Keselowski created for himself.

Over the last three months of the 2009 season, Brad Keselowski could have charitably been described as a weapon. While his chief nemesis was Busch’s Sprint Cup teammate, Denny Hamlin, it seemed that Keselowski raced without much regard for who he ran into and where they – and the cars behind them - ended up.

Exhibit A, perhaps, would be the Kroger 250, held at Memphis Motorsports Park – an event Keselowski won after creating no fewer than three accidents with what could arguably be called over-the-top aggressiveness, three-quarters of a mile short track or not.

The prosecution’s star witness could be Hamlin or any number of drivers, but a DA would more likely opt for the fabricators for the many Nationwide teams impacted by Keselowski’s rough riding.

The fabricators for the #88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet that Keselowski had driven would have little defense at all, however, save for a crinkled rear bumper cover sustained at the Homestead-Miami Speedway when Hamlin perfectly played the role of a vigilante crusader right down to the black suit. As Hamlin put it, one would have thought that he, not Busch, had won the Ford 300.

One victim of the Memphis carnage was Carl Edwards, up to this weekend the man who had taken center stage in the the second act of the Brad Keselowski Saga.

Keselowski’s #12 Dodge flying through the air at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, courtesy of Edwards, even made World News Tonight, with Diane Sawyer questioning whether Carl had gone too far. A last-lap clash between the two left fans fuming and Bob Keselowski, Brad’s father and a former racer himself, threatening to take care of Edwards himself.

And yet, one has to consider that the only person who created this situation for Brad Keselowski is Brad Keselowski.

Sure, he can make his martyr-like claims that he will not be pushed around, fenders and fellow competitors be damned, an attitude that served him well in the short term.

However, the long-term side effects of such an attitude and the actions that accompany them will far outweigh any satisfaction Keselowski gained from his Memphis victory, positions he collected with his front-bumper, and the puffed-out chest bravado with which he declared that he was Brad By-God Keselowski and no one was going to cow him.

And as long as he performs as he has thus far on the Sprint Cup side in 2010, where he has been little more than an afterthought since the Atlanta accident, it is unlikely that he will be taken as much more than a big-mouthed kid who’s talent isn’t as fast as his tongue.

There is something to admire about Keselowski’s style, but that “me against the world” mantra grows tired quickly, especially when you haven’t collected a top ten in the big show all season. His 2009 Cup performance, in which he won at Talladega and scored three other top-ten finishes, was left in 2009.

What wasn’t left there was the feelings he created over the course of the final three months of that season, and further proof of that was served on Friday night. One can argue that Kyle Busch might have dumped anyone in that situation, but it also bears consideration that when Busch felt the contact to his rear bumper and glanced off the backstretch wall, the fact that it was Keselowski on the other end played a role in his decision to retaliate.

Besides, had Busch really wanted to crash Keselowski, he had plenty of opportunities as they raced side by side for several laps prior.

To decry that Busch unfairly used Keselowski’s probation against him is baseless. Keselowski’s past over-aggression led him to his current situation, and rather than crying that he is being taken advantage of, his partisans should instead be thankful that a sticker declaring “Open Season” hasn’t been placed onto his race cars and uniforms.

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