There are certain things in life that aren’t easy to forget or get over. And it looks like Hendrick Motorsports has had a similar effect on RFK Racing driver and co-owner Brad Keselowski. Back in 2009, Keselowski had to make a tough choice that could’ve altered his entire career. Reportedly, back then, Keselowski was in talks with Rick Hendrick, exploring the opportunity for landing a full-time ride in the Cup Series. However, as everyone knows, that didn’t happen.

But does that incident still bug Keselowski? Maybe yes!

In his recent interview with The Athletic, NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck asked Keselowski about a deal that came close but didn’t end up working out. To this, the 2012 Sprint Cup Series champion said,

“This is tough, because there’s the ones you can share and there’s the ones you can’t share. Some people are aware I was gonna drive the #5 car (for Hendrick Motorsports). That one was the closest. It came all the way down to I had firesuits ready for production days. Like it was ready to go.”

Brad Keselowski reveals why he never made his contract with Hendrick Motorsports public

While discussing how even after “signing the contract and everything,” the deal didn’t work out, Brad Keselowski revealed that he didn’t want to make the news public. He shared,

“Yep. So I had signed the contract in the fall of ’08 to take over the #5 car. I personally didn’t want to announce it at that time because I was concerned what it would do to the team morale at JR Motorsports [where Keselowski was racing in the Xfinity Series].”

Furthermore, Keselowski explained why he thought that the announcement might affect the morale of Dale Earnhardt Jr‘s team. He added,

“Because generally when it’s like ‘Hey, this driver has got a Cup deal now,’ it’s like, ‘Oh, he doesn’t care about us.’ And I didn’t want that at all for that team.”

Why things didn’t work out with Hendrick Motorsports

During his conversation with Jeff Gluck, Brad Keselowski shared that he and Hendrick Motorsports mutually agreed to sit through the offseason of 2008 through 2009. However, at the beginning of the 2009 season, Mark Martin (who actually drove the #5 instead of Keselowski) won the race at Phoenix Raceway for Hendrick Motorsports.

READ MORE: Brad Keselowski Gets Sad News With His Right-Hand Man; But an Unlikely Hero Steps In to Save His Day

Sharing how Keselowski also won a race at Talladega the very next week, he added,

“And I’m thinking, ‘It’s tit for tat. We’re probably fine here.’ And then a week later, I got the call that, ‘Hey, we’re not doing the deal anymore.’ I was stunned. It took me a while to get over that. But it ended up working out.”

And it indeed worked out for Keselowski. Just a couple of years later in 2012, Keselowski won his first Sprint Cup Series. Throughout his Cup career, Keselowski has registered 35 wins and 236 top 1o finishes.

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