Keselowski has racing in his blood

KANSAS CITY, Kan. —Bob Keselowski sat near a tool box in front of the garage at Dover International Speedway sipping on a cup of coffee, an arm's reach from a wrench or a screwdriver.

He watched as the NASCAR Nationwide Series car driven by his youngest son, Brad, was prepared for the race, and offered any help the team might need.

But Bob Keselowski's work already had been done years ago. Almost everything Brad Keselowski knows about racing came from years of hanging around K Automotive — his family's race team that was started in Lake Orion, Mich., far from NASCAR's hotbed of Charlotte.

Mom-and-pop race teams have gone the way of the carburetor and rear fenders with fins, but in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Bob Keselowski ruled.

He won 24 races in the ARCA series — eighth all-time — including the 1989 championship. He was runner-up in the series four times between 1988 and 1993, and his wife, Kay, daughters Ginger, Kathy and Dawn, and sons Brian and Brad were part of the effort.

"To me, as a kid, he was the Dale Earnhardt of the North," Brad Keselowski says today. "He was that guy when he ran ARCA, but he never really got the opportunities to run in the South.

"It would have been interesting to see if he would have that the opportunities...."

Brad Keselowski's voice trailed off. He was speaking of the opportunities he eventually received and took advantage of as NASCAR's newest rock star, a three-time Sprint Cup race winner this year and one of the contenders for the Chase for the Sprint Cup, which competes at Kansas Speedway today.

Before he ever got in a seat, Brad spent time under hoods and under cars at the family shop, which was started by Bob's father and is owned and operated by Bob and Kay.

"Their job descriptions kept changing as they got older," Bob said of Brad and Brian. "They started at the bottom of everything. My intentions for them were for them to grow up and take over and continue the racing family legacy.

"I really didn't know in the '90s if either one was going to be a race-car driver. It didn't matter. If they wanted to be part of racing and run a race team, that was fine, too. As it turned out, they both ended up being drivers, and in all reality I didn't dream Brad would get this far.

"That was kind of a bonus."

Even as Bob Keselowski stepped up to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and won the 1997 race at Richmond, he resisted moving the race shop and his family south.

K Automotive did contract work for Chrysler, General Motors and the defense department, building chassis, suspensions and other vehicle components.

"That was our bread and butter," said Bob Keselowski, 60, whose brother Ron raced in the Cup series during 1970-72 without success. "We had to stay there. Our job connections and all our family were there, but we wanted to be NASCAR car racers at the same time."

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Kay Keselowski never saw a race until she met Bob in 1978. Their first date was the NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.

"It was an eye-opening experience," she said. "I didn't even know who Richard Petty was. I had heard his name, but who he was, what he had done, I didn't know. But I was absolutely wowed. I was hooked from then on."

When the Keselowskis married in 1980, they could have exchanged earplugs instead of wedding bands. The transporter was their second home.

"If you're going to survive this deal, you've got to include your wife in some way," Bob Keselowski said. "You're on the road too much. Otherwise you would never see each other."

A heart condition eventually ended Bob Keselowski's driving career, but K Automotive became Camping World Truck Series owners. During 2001-03, their truck, raced by Terry Cook, won three races.

During the week, while Bob worked on the car, Kay managed the team's offices, handled the books, made the airline and hotel reservations and cooked for the team at the track. On race day, Kay served as spotter. And Brian worked as a mechanic and Brad kept stats and manned the signboard.

"Growing up with a family race team that had varying levels of success was perhaps in some ways a blessing, some ways a curse," Brad said. "A blessing, I'll say, to get some inside knowledge behind the sport and how it works... but sometimes you have preconceived notions on how things are going to work or you dream small when all you've known is small.

"What I learned the most from my dad was how to be self-reliant and make a lot happen with a little... make the most of your resources."

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Bob Keselowski gave Brad one piece of advice when Brad made his Camping World Truck series debut at Dover for K Automotive in 2004.

"He told me, 'Go out there and run half throttle... this place is tough, and I don't want you to hit the wall,'" Brad recalled.

But nothing Brad Keselowski does is half speed. Competing for K Automotive against the big boys from Roush, Hendrick, Richard Childress, Keselowski was determined.

He also got the most out of an underfinanced Nationwide Series car owned by Keith Coleman. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was looking for a driver to join his JR Motorsports Nationwide team, took notice.

"Dale Jr. happened to be parked alongside Brad," Kay Keselowski said, "and when Brad outran Dale in practice, Dale said, 'Wow, I can't believe you are making this car go this fast.'"

After Brad Keselowski snagged the pole at a 2007 truck race at Memphis, led the most laps but got spun out at the end of the race, Earnhardt had seen enough. He hired Keselowski for the 2008 season.

A star was born. Keselowski won six Nationwide races in two years for JR Motorsports; moved to Penske Racing in 2010 and won the Nationwide championship.

Meanwhile, Keselowski was a developmental driver for Hendrick Motorsports in the Sprint Cup series, but Hendrick didn't have a seat for him. While on loan to James Finch, he won Talladega in 2009 in just his fifth Sprint Cup start.

Keselowski finally moved into Penske's No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge in 2010, and this year, qualified for the Chase and won three races, including last June at Kansas Speedway.

Along the way Keselowski became a polarizing figure. He became the second driver in Nationwide history to win three Most Popular Driver awards in the series during 2008-10, but he also made enemies in the garages with aggressive actions on the track and being outspoken with the media.

"That's Brad all the way," Kay Keselowski said. "That's who he is. I've always tried to tell the kids, to be true to themselves and don't put on airs. That's one thing I dislike, people who tell you one thing to your face and do another behind your back.

"He's just a very honest person. He truly does not mean to be flagrant about it or anything that some of the media make it out to be. Don't ask Brad a question you don't want an answer to... because he is going to tell you the way he feels about it. He's not going to be rude... you ask a question, he's going to answer it. It's the way he's been all his life."

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It would be easy for Brian Keselowski to be jealous of his younger brother. Brian never drove a race car until he was 18 because he was always working on them, so got a later start than Brad.

Brian, 30, came up through the ranks, won three ARCA series races in 2006-07 and made 63 Nationwide starts since 2007, including three this year. But he was never in the right place at the right time like Brad.

"I feel like if roles could have been reversed, there's a possibility I could be in the same position he's in now," said Brian, who lives in Brad's townhouse outside Charlotte. "There are no guarantees. I would have liked the chance."

Brad, 27, gave Brian his biggest moment in the feel-good story of the 2011 NASCAR season during qualifying for the Daytona 500.

Brian brought a car with a used motor and little horsepower that had little chance of qualifying for the race. But Brad had been spun out in the middle of the Gatorade Duel qualifier, and while back in the field, hooked up with Brian and pushed him to a fifth-place finish while Brad came in seventh, qualifying both cars for the Daytona 500.

Never mind that Brian lasted just 28 laps and finished 41st in the 500, he had made The Show and collected a much-needed $273,663.

"For our family, Brian might as well had won it," Kay Keselowski said. "I told Brad he was my absolute hero for doing that. It was the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed in my life."

The old man was pretty proud, too.

"No matter what happens from here," Bob Keselowski said of Brian, "if he doesn't succeed as a race car driver, he got to run in the Daytona 500.

"To me, that's big. I ran every other series in the world, but never ran in the Daytona 500, and that still bugs me to this day."

This story was originally published October 9, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Keselowski has racing in his blood."