NASCAR Nationwide Series
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NNS: Edwards Wins In Wild Gateway Finish
Carl Edwards won the NASCAR Nationwide Series Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 at Gateway International Raceway...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted July 18, 2010   Madison, IL
Carl Edwards does his back-flip in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 at Gateway International Raceway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski are at it again, and this time it got particularly ugly.

LINK> UNOFFICIAL RESULTS: MISSOURI-ILLINOIS DODGE DEALERS 250 - GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
PDF> UNOFFICIAL DRIVER POINTS: MISSOURI-ILLINOIS DODGE DEALERS 250 - GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY

Edwards survived a frantic final lap and two incidents with Keselowski to win Saturday night’s Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway. On a hot night in the nation’s midsection, tempers flared after the race.

Edwards held a slight lead over Keselowski as they took the white flag. In the first turn, Keselowski bumped Edwards’ left rear in a classic bump-and-run move to send Edwards high on the track. Edwards retained control, but Keselowski pushed to the front down the backstretch.

As the two cars exited turn four in the shadow of the checkered flag, Edwards turned into the back of Keselowski’s Dodge and sent the series point leader crashing hard into the outside wall. As Keselowski bounced across the track, the cars behind him scattered across the surface.

Shelby Howard slammed hard into Keselowski’s car, sending it into another spin.

Edwards kept control of his car and sailed across the finish line, edging Reed Sorenson, who had been third on the white-flag lap.

“I couldn’t let him take the win from me,” said Edwards, finally putting Ford in victory lane. “We came here to win, and they took it from us in turn one. I had to do what I had to do.

“He just got in over his head and tried too hard, and it was at my expense. Well, that [the final crash] was at his expense.”
Brad Keselowski hits the wall on the last lap of the NASCAR Nationwide Series Dollar General 300 at Chicagoland Speedway. (Image: SPEED)

Bob Keselowski, Brad’s father, was furious after the incident. “He ain’t going to kill my boy,” he said. “I’ll put a uniform back on and take care of this if I have to. That’s asinine.”

A caution with 13 laps to go set up the finish. The yellow was caused by Kevin Harvick, who won the Camping World Truck race at the track earlier in the day. He slammed into the outside wall, damaging the right side of his Chevrolet. He was running fourth at the time.

With eight laps to go and drivers in the top 15 frantically swapping positions, Justin Allgaier’s car was damaged in three-wide racing with Steven Wallace and Trevor Bayne. Allgaier slowed and was tapped into a spin by Taylor Malsam, sparking a multi-car crash that also involved Joe Nemechek.

Nemechek’s car wound up stalled in the middle of the track, and NASCAR put the field under red-flag conditions with five laps to go.

The green fell with two to go, and Edwards and Keselowski began their clash for the win.

Following Sorenson in the top five were Bayne, Paul Menard and Steven Wallace.

Keselowski, who finished 14th, dominated the first half of the race after taking the lead from pole winner Bayne.

He dropped out of the top spot temporarily because of driver error – and it happened to be his. While attempting to make a green-flag pit stop, he wasn’t able to slow his car properly on the pit access road and sailed onto the adjacent grass apron, losing control of the rear end of the car.

Keselowski responded quickly, saved the car and pitted but lost the lead to Edwards.

A few laps later, the recharged Keselowski chased down Edwards and regained the lead.

LINK> UNOFFICIAL RESULTS: MISSOURI-ILLINOIS DODGE DEALERS 250 - GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
PDF> UNOFFICIAL DRIVER POINTS: MISSOURI-ILLINOIS DODGE DEALERS 250 - GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY

The field rolled under caution for the third time with 50 laps to go when Matt DiBenedetto lost control of his car and was hit in the driver door by Brad Coleman, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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