Brad Keselowski re-emerges as NASCAR’s anti-hero
Brad Keselowski, much like the product sponsor on his car, is a bit of an acquired taste.
Miller Lite isn’t for all beer drinkers, much like Keselowski isn’t a palatable choice for many fans of the NASCAR Nation. Keselowski won the Sprint Cup title in 2012, driving a Dodge instead of a Ford at the time.
Then 28, he celebrated by swigging beer on live TV, and then taking his championship pedigree very seriously — talking about becoming an ambassador for the sport and openly sharing his ideas on how to make the sport better with the NASCAR hierarchy.
That didn’t go over so well for the most part.
The backstory is important as a reference point to last weekend’s events in Las Vegas, where Keselowski overtook local favorite Kyle Busch in the closing laps to win for the first time in 33 Cup starts. It was a muted celebration for a segment of NASCAR fans who have never warmed up to Keselowski. And he’s fine with that. He’s embraced his role as an outsider while never ever losing that brash self-assurance of beating everyone else to the finish line — even if it did take 33 races to get there again.
“Brad’s a confident guy,” said Joey Logano, his Penske Racing teammate. “I don’t know if you guys met him before. It’s hard for him to lose confidence.”
That line was met with laughter by reporters in the media center in Las Vegas. They know the deal. Every morality play needs a villain, and Keselowski is as good — or bad — as it gets in NASCAR Nation. But in order to really get under everyone’s skin, the bad guy has to be good on the racetrack, which is why seeing Keselowski up front again will stir up a bunch of emotions.
“There was a lot of misfortune and there was a lot of self-inflicted things I could have done better and beyond,” Keselowski said, reflecting on his struggles in 2013 and 2015. “I can’t sit here and dwell on that. At the end of the day, the last four seasons, the 2 team has won the most races two of the last four years.
“It’s my goal to make that three out of the last five years where we won the most races. I think in any professional sport, a stat like that is a pretty good one. I’m going to try to focus on that one.”
Keselowski always brings the passion and the pride, sprinkled in with a large measure of petulance at times. What’s not to like?
“The thing that’s great about Brad to me — that maybe he rubs the fans the wrong way sometime is because he is so passionate about this sport,” NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett once told me.
NASCAR — or any other sport — does not need homogenized heroes, or villains, for that matter.
Keselowski has mixed it up with everyone at some point it seems, from Jeff Gordon to Matt Kenseth to the guy he beat Sunday afternoon, Mr. Busch.
That’s racin’. That’s Keselowski.