The sprawling RFK Racing headquarters in Concord, North Carolina, holds a rich history. Jack Roush’s team is 50 years old and holds eight championships in NASCAR, and Brad Keselowski breathed new life into it in 2022. The 2012 Cup Series champion transferred from Team Penske to take over co-ownership of Roush’s team. RFK has already accumulated five Cup race wins since his induction. His brilliance as a team owner hides a childhood story.

Brad Keselowski is a third-generation motorsports athlete. His grandfather John began racing cars in 1957 and established a long legacy. But that legacy had more to do with turning wrenches and getting one’s hands dirty, which Brad did not want to be a part of.

Brad Keselowski reveals his family disconnect

The Keselowski family lived and breathed auto racing. After a long apprenticeship, John Keselowski’s sons Bob and Ron took over the family team in 1971. The younger brother Bob was more keen on the technical aspects. Having worked at a car dealership, he used his technical prowess to win races. Bob Keselowski was an ARCA Menards Series champion, winning 24 races. He moved over to the NASCAR Truck Series in 1995 and claimed a lone championships in 1997. His son Brad Keselowski has harnessed the same if not more success – but he followed a different path.

In a recent episode of the Dale Jr. Download, Brad Keselowski shared a family story. He shared how his father Bob Keselowski was hardworking and driven – only in racing, and not in business. “My dad was not an exceptional businessman. He was a racer, and he loved the technical challenge of racing. He was a guy that was like, ‘I’m gonna come up with a better spring or a better shock and I’m gonna beat you.’ That’s what he enjoyed…He did not enjoy… didn’t care for the managing people aspect. That was not him, and that’s okay… I’m not good at putting an engine in a car.. and my dad was like, ‘that’s who you gotta be to be a racer’.”

Meanwhile, Brad Keselowski turned out to be vastly different. He developed a prowess for the management side – he had served as the family team’s engineer at 14, going to the wind tunnel and running formulas. Keselowski continued: “When I started to be a part of watching my dad race – the business that was associated with it, I just kind of gravitated right towards that… I think my dad hated that. My brother was the opposite, like, ‘I’m going to get under the car, put the gear in’… And that’s not my strength… It just shows that there’s more than one way to do this, more than one way to be successful.”

His childhood knack helped Brad Keselowski be a successful team owner at RFK. However, there is more to his achievements.

He tried to rescue the legacy

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The Keselowski family team had been operating since the 1950s. John Keselowski was the patriarch, and his two sons worked in the garage behind their house. They took over in 1971, with Bob Keselowski juggling a successful racing career and managing the team. However, struggles descended on the family legacy, and Bob’s sons Brian and Brad witnessed them. They ran a full Truck Series season in 2005, two races in 2006, and then shut down. The family had to sell the property with their 15,000-square-foot race shop and trucks, but it still was not enough to cover their debts. It was then that Brad Keselowski displayed the noble side of his talents.

When his family was on the brink of bankruptcy, Brad Keselowski gave his all. He tried to save the legacy with his own race earnings and kept the family standing. That is what Kay Keselowski, Brad’s mother, said in an interview in 2012 when her son was about to win the Cup Series title. “He pulled us out of bankruptcy all by himself. He gave us every penny he had to pay our bills and bring us back out. He ended up not having much himself but he paid all of that to the tune of six-digit numbers. He bailed us out; otherwise we would have lost probably our home and everything else that was involved in that.”

His mother’s comments came as a reflection of Keselowski’s gut-wrenching admission in 2012 before the Cup Series finale. “To think that I was a part of bankrupting my family to try to pursue your own dream is a moment where you feel so selfish and incredibly low as a human being you don’t even know how you’re going to recover,” Keselowski said. Apart from being a supremely talented driver and owner, Keselowski was a loving son and a family man.

Evidently, Brad Keselowski proved that there is indeed more than one way to succeed in motorsport. Even so, he cherishes his dad’s memory dearly, as Bob Keselowski taught him this way of life.