Crew chief Tony Eury Sr. (Left) and Brad Keselowski (Right) have moved the No. 88 Delphi/Go Daddy Chevrolet into third place in the NASCAR Nationwide Series points race. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

It also will be interesting to see how Keselowski does without Eury running the show. Earnhardt Jr., who had his greatest success as a driver under Eury, his uncle, has struggled every year he’s raced without him.

To his credit, Keselowski didn’t try to dodge the issue of his driving in his winner’s interviews at Memphis, saying among other things that he was giving the fans what they wanted.

“I was very aggressive and put myself in a lot of those situations that led to contact,” he 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.”

His biggest challenge now is finding a way to continue racing with drivers like Edwards, Bliss and Hamlin, because history has shown that NASCAR drivers have very long memories when it comes to perceived injustices on the track.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Rick Minter is a veteran, award-winning sports journalist who joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1991 covering motorsports as well as serving as a bureau chief. From 2000-2008 Minter focused on racing exclusively, traveling the NASCAR circuit as the paper’s motorsports writer.

Rick can be reached at rminter@racintoday.com