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.

“I’m telling you, it’s the biggest year of my life,” Keselowski had said when he took over in 2022. “It’s a big gamble, as I like to call it. It’s a watershed moment for me in the sense of taking on a larger role and responsibility than I ever have. It’ll be a year of pursuing self-growth accordingly. I feel really good about it. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and we’re putting in the effort to improve the company and the race teams accordingly. I think we have some stuff that will show just that with good results.” Running a NASCAR team with multiple owners is no easy feat.

But, with three powerhouse entities, Jack Roush, Fenway Sports Group (led by John Henry), and Keselowski himself, RFK Racing runs on a balanced collaboration with clearly defined responsibilities. Keselowski cited Hendrick Motorsports, a team co-owned by NASCAR legends Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon, as an instance of how a multi-owner structure can thrive. “I would liken that situation to… Hendrick Motorsports. If you’re talking about Mr. Hendrick, Jeff Gordon, their competition director, and that kind of thing—same concept. I have a staff, and it protects the interests of all three of us,” Keselowski said. Interestingly, this 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 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. After a long apprenticeship, John’s sons Bob and Ron took over the family team in 1971. 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 was an ARCA Menards Series champion, winning 24 races. He moved over to the NASCAR Truck Series in 1995 and claimed a lone championship in 1997. His son Brad 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’.” Brad 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. So much so that the team is now set for its next chapter.

The NASCAR Cup Series is set to return on February 2. As Keselowski said, the in-between time won’t go idly by, not in what he’s characterized as a “really busy offseason.” In the new season, the Jack Roush-founded organization will grow from two Cup Series teams to three with the addition of driver Ryan Preece and a family of sponsors with Kroger. Keselowski, 40, noted how the team caught stride after a first-year stumble with the Next Gen car, putting both of its teams into the 16-driver playoff field in 2023.

Last year, Keselowski snapped a 110-race drought with his victory at Darlington Raceway to mark his first win as a driver-owner, all while having visions of what RFK’s evolution, which, he said, meant expansion. “From there, it was kind of like we recognized that’s the next step,” Keselowski said Nov. 22, in the hours before the annual NASCAR Awards. “If you look at the way NASCAR’s set up right now, you need to have three teams. I think that’s why you see the Trackhouses and the 23XIs and all those guys are pushing to be three teams, even Front Row.”

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“So there’s strength in numbers with just the way the sport’s laid out, and how you can kind of amortize the overhead and capture the most data. So it’s important for us to be not just financially viable, but competitively viable to have three teams and maximize the opportunities on any given weekend. So, it’s a natural next step for us to get us to where we can ramp up our performance,” Keselowski added. However, there is more to his achievements.

Brad Keselowski tried to rescue the legacy

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.