Brad Keselowski is currently both a successful NASCAR Cup Series driver and a team owner. However, his path into racing looked nothing like the streamlined routes available to youngsters today, such as Brexton Busch or Keelan Harvick. That said, his upbringing was not devoid of opportunity either.
Advertisement
Brad’s father, Bob Keselowski, was a respected NASCAR racer and team owner, operating K-Automotive Racing, winning an ARCA Menards Series championship, and helping pioneer the NASCAR Truck Series. That operation laid the groundwork for Brad’s career before financial pressure ultimately forced the team to shut its doors.
However, despite growing up inside a race shop, Keselowski did not draw a paycheck for driving early on.
In a 2015 interview with Jeff Gluck, Brad Keselowski explained that his first paid work in racing came through his father’s team, though it had nothing to do with engineering or turning wrenches. Instead, his role revolved around the unglamorous tasks that keep a shop functioning.
As Keselowski recalled, “They let me sweep floors, and I ended up mowing the grass a lot and mopping. I think I made like $20 a day, which was a lot of money when I was 16. I had to work 8 to 5 every day in the summer.”
It was honest labor, long hours, and modest pay, but it introduced him to the grind that underpins every racing operation. One memory from his time at K-Automotive Racing stood out the most, as it was tied to something as small and unpleasant as a trash can. Keselowski recalled that nearly everyone in the shop, aside from his family, chewed tobacco.
Their aim, he noted, rarely matched their confidence, leaving the sides of the trash can coated. Taking that trash to the dumpster fell squarely on his shoulders. As he put it, “I’d be like, ‘Ugh!’ It just was gross.”
The situation worsened because the trash only got picked up once a month. Race shops generate plenty of waste, and that schedule never kept the dumpster under control. Keselowski described saving large cardboard boxes, placing them on top, then climbing in to crush everything down so the last bags would fit.
He continued, “I remember being 15 or 16 years old in the dumpster, jumping on the boxes, and there’d be spit and chew all over everything. There were scraps of metal, and you’d be like barely dodging them to not get cut open.”
Eventually, he asked his parents for relief. “‘Could we maybe get the trash picked up once every two weeks instead of once a month so I don’t have to get in the dumpster and jump on everything?’ They’re like, ‘No, no, son. You don’t know how expensive that is.'”
Years later, when Keselowski started his own race team, the subject of garbage pickup resurfaced. This time, he saw the invoice, and it cost roughly $19 a month for basic service and $35 for twice-monthly pickup. The realization stunned him. He had spent two summers jumping into a hazardous dumpster, surrounded by metal scraps and chewing tobacco, for about $15 a day, all to save what now seemed like pocket change.
In hindsight, the RFK racing owner conceded that the experience likely served a purpose. The lessons were not written on a timesheet or reflected in a paycheck, but they shaped his understanding of work, cost, and responsibility. His parents, he later acknowledged, probably knew exactly what they were doing.
