Brad Keselowski, who is recovering from a femur injury he suffered in December while skiing, has not let it dull his approach in the NASCAR garage. He still finished the Daytona 500 in P5, and followed it up with a P17 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Keselowski now heads to COTA, ready to push himself while taking on the 39 other drivers.
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Competing with and beating nearly 40 drivers each week is no walk in the park. Keselowski knows that better than most. Drivers go door-to-door and bumper-to-bumper all season, but the competitive fire does not subdue the human element in them.
During media rounds in Atlanta, Keselowski opened up about how drivers carry the weight of competition and emotions, and empathy for those who miss out, all while keeping a poker face on camera.
“Absolutely, yeah. I have had races where I felt bad for people who had done everything right, and it just doesn’t come together. I can’t speak for everybody else, but yeah,” said Keselowski.
“I mean, you’re running, and you’ll see someone who is doing a great job, and it all falls apart for them… I think the more empathy you have for others when it happens to them,” he added.
Keselowski then gave a brutal reality check. “The reality is that when you get in that race car, you’re in control, but you’re really not,” he said.
“There [are] a lot of factors, whether it be things that happen on the racetrack or things that happen before the race ever started, with the way their team put the car together. There are a lot of factors you can’t control, and what really makes a great driver to me is someone who controls their part at a high level,” added Keselowski.
That truth often gets lost amid the high-speed action. Fans see a driver run 20th and call it a day. But if the car was only good enough to be 30th and the driver dragged it to 20th, that is punching above its weight, utilizing and pushing the car to the best of its ability. And that kind of performance depends on the driver’s skill.
Flip the coin, and a driver can have a rocket and still leave meat on the bone with a fifth or tenth. On paper, he may have had a good outing, but the under-the-hood factor provides the true picture.
This understanding makes people like Keselowski great at reading the field. It is also probably why he took a bet on Ryan Preece and had him join RFK Racing.
The RFK Racing owner watched Preece grind it out at Stewart-Haas Racing, squeezing results, and saw a racer who keeps the nose down. That faith paid off when Preece broke through with his first Cup win at Bowman Gray Stadium this season.
