Brad Keselowski and NASCAR’s Next Generation car have had a very difficult marriage. That too in two different ways: One as a driver, and the other as a team co-owner of Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing.
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The Next Gen car, also known as the Gen 7 car, was introduced to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2022. That was also the same year Keselowski joined RFK Racing as both a driver and co-owner.
Before 2022, Keselowski had 35 wins in the Cup Series and won the Cup championship in the final season for Dodge in 2012. Since joining RFK three years back, Keselowski has had just one win. “That’s been hard for me,” he readily admits.
Also, since 2022, the Michigan native has made the NASCAR Cup playoffs twice, finishing eighth in 2023 and 13th in 2024. Keselowski had his second-worst season as a driver in his first season with RFK, finishing 24th.
Keselowski has not only missed the playoffs again this year, but is currently 20th in the Cup standings with six more races remaining. So far this season, he has two runner-up finishes, one third-place finish, and two fifth-place showings.
“The Next Gen car changed me in some ways for the worse as a driver because you have to drive it way differently,” Keselowski said on this week’s edition of the Stacking Pennies podcast with Corey LaJoie and Skip Flores.
“The cars in 2008, 2009 [his first couple of years in the Cup Series], first off, were significantly faster. I don’t know if I can put into terms how much faster they were than the Next Gen car,” he reminisced.
“My first Cup start was at Texas, and you could literally spin the tires off the corner, you spun the tires up. You come off of turn four, and you’d be putting the gas pedal down on the rear tire. Now, you can’t spin the tires on a restart. Like, I’m in the zone, mash it, here it goes [and it’s] like I’m in an old pickup truck.
“It’s different because the other cars that I’ve raced, throttle control was paramount. If you didn’t have it, you’re going to the back fast. And this car, it’s like the antithesis of that. You’ve got to like just smash the pedal. That’s been hard for me personally,” added Keselowski.
But the Next Gen era seems to have also affected the team as a whole. Both he and Chris Buescher (finished 21st) missed the playoffs in 2022, both made the playoffs in 2023 (Buescher finished seventh), and Buescher missed the playoffs last season (17th).
Beuscher again missed this season (also 17th with six races to go). Ryan Preece, who joined the team as it expanded to three cars this season, also missed the playoffs (currently 18th).
The 41-year-old Keselowski knows his racing career is coming to an end in the next few years. And then he’ll likely transition to full-time ownership control of RFK. Until then, he has to make the best of the situation with the Next Gen car. “I have to remind myself to like just drive it stupid, you know?” he said.
“I am definitely Team Horsepower. You look at races like Bristol, where the tires wore and you couldn’t do that, and I was like, ‘Oh, these guys are in a heap of trouble,’ particularly the younger drivers that never had to drive anything that required throttle control. They just burn them off,” added Keselowski, who is hoping that NASCAR fulfills the rumored upgrade for next season.
The current 670-horsepower motor is expected to be raised to between 740 and 750 horsepower in 2026. “It looks like NASCAR is going to change the rules next year to where we’re like 740-750,” said Keselowski.
“It’s not quite 100 [more horsepower] because right now, technically, they’re at 670. But realistically, they’re like 685-690. I think it’s just going to be a bigger spacer. That’s my understanding,” he added.
A bigger spacer should help throttle control even more. That could potentially give Keselowski a chance at one more bid for a Cup championship.
