Timing and scoring
Keselowski aces fatherhood, but wants a Daytona 500 By Godwin Kelly godwin.kelly@news-jrnl.com
Brad Keselowski has impeccable timing. Just consider the birth of his second child. NASCAR Cup Series drivers are constantly on the move during the 38-week season, which begins this year with the Feb. 16 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
Just two weeks after the end of the 2019 NASCAR season, Keselowski’s wife, Paige, gave birth to Autumn, now little sister to 4-year-old Scarlett. The season ended on Nov. 17. The baby was born on Dec. 2, which gave Keselowski the rare opportunity to spend time bonding with the new addition to the family.
“It’s been interesting for sure,” he said in a recent interview. “Have a baby and be in the middle of the offseason and get to go through Christmas stuff and the holidays, it sure made life a little easier.”
There is only one fact Keselowski would not share. How many diapers has he changed during the offseason?
“A man never tells,” he said with a laugh.
Quiet family time will soon end. NASCAR teams will report to Daytona on Feb. 7. Keselowski will be back behind the wheel on Feb. 8 for the first practice of Speedweeks.
The next day, Cup Series teams qualify for the Daytona 500 front row, and about half of them, including Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford, will compete in the Busch Clash. There’s no transition.
“You put your game face on,” Keselowski said. “You don’t get a choice. They start the season whether you’re ready or not.”
Keselowski will arrive at Daytona working with a new crew chief. For reasons not fully explained, team owner Roger Penske decided to do a crew chief swap between his three Cup teams.
After years of working with Paul Wolfe, Keselowski was paired with Jeremy Bullins. Wolfe will be working with Joey Logano while Todd Gordon, who was Logano’s crew chief, will be calling the shots for Ryan Blaney.
“As we do after the completion of each season, we evaluated what we can do to better achieve our goals and we felt it was time to make these changes to better position us to reach our potential,” Penske said.
“Pairing each of these winning teams with different drivers and cars should provide new energy and a fresh approach for the 2020 season.”
When Keselowski was asked about the realignment, he tiptoed into the answer like entering a nursery occupied with a sleeping baby.
“The expectation is we go out and win races and contend for a championship and hopefully win it,” Keselowski said of the shake-up. “I can’t share any more on that subject. But I think it’s healthy. You have to set the bar high.
“As far as the change and rationale behind it, Roger Penske felt it was the right move and I support him and his decision. He’s a very successful man and he’s a pretty hard guy to argue against.”
Maybe it will change Keselowski’s Daytona 500 luck. He’s been crashed out in the “Big One” several times in recent years.
“The only thing you can do is run the race,” he said. “I haven’t been able to do that. Shoot, last year I got caught in three separate wrecks. What can do you do about that?
“I didn’t cause a single one of them. You try to be honest with yourself and control the things you can control, but a lot of things are out of your control.”
NASCAR’s races at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway are far different from any other track on the Cup Series schedule. The cars have reduced power, and with the steep banking, drivers don’t let off the gas.
The cars run in huge packs and use tricks, such as side drafting, to make passes. Since they run so close together for long periods of time, multicar wrecks are the norm.
Still, Keselowski says he needs to win a Daytona 500 to round out his racing legacy.
“I need to get that Daytona major,” he said. “I’ve been so close but different things have taken it out of our reach. It’s hard to quantify how bad we want it. How do you explain that?
“It’s important for me (to win) and for others. It hasn’t come together yet. I wish I could tell you why. If I knew why, I’d fix it. We’ll have a good shot to win it this year. You got to survive all those wrecks.”