Brad Keselowski looked back at the time he drove for Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s JR Motorsports in the early stages of his NASCAR career. On Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast, the 40-year-old driver talked to Harvick about something special Earnhardt said to him.
“His plate was really full and he was really stressed,” Keselowski said about Earnhardt. “At one time, he said to me something I’m so proud of, I’m thankful he kind of had the courage or the guts to say it. …But he was like, ‘Man, that was one of the toughest times in my life. I had all the things going on in the Cup side, and the Xfinity team wasn’t going to make it. It was wrecking every week, we didn’t have cars, we’re losing a lot of money.’
And he says, ‘Man, you saved that team and made it something that lived. It wasn’t going to live. And he just told me how thankful he was for that and with all the other stress he had in my life that got kind of took off his plate and became something that could just live for him and his family and function. I’m proud of that and it meant a lot to me when he said that.
Keselowski drove for JR Motorsports from 2007 to 2009. He finished third in the Xfinity Series standings in 2008 and 2009 and won a total of six races during that span.
How Brad Keselowski began driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Keselowski also recalled how he began working for Earnhardt. “I feel like I was really lucky,” Keselowski said. “I was competing in the [Xfinity Series] with a really backmarker team. At that time, this was circa ’06/’07, you go to a race and there would be 25-30 Cup drivers in it. …At that point, just making the show was a pretty good deal if you were not a Cup-affiliated team or driver. I started just making the shows. Now I would run like 35th or 40th, but I was making the show. I have a practice session where I would be in the top five and enough to like people would notice it.
“…And it was enough to get some attention.Michael Waltrip wanted to put me in his Xfinity car, this would have been the summer of ’07. It didn’t come together for a number of reasons. Ultimately, probably my biggest break was when Ted Musgrave got suspended after a Truck race in Milwaukee. I filled in for him in Memphis in a Truck race. I ran really well, sat on the pole, led a lot of laps, had a shot to win. It just felt like all these different things came together.”
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