By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
After winning two of the first six races of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season Brad Keselowski finds himself and his team in a position to not become complacent.
In 2018, the wins for the No. 2 team at Team Penske did not garner race wins until Darlington Raceway in September. In 2019, the team kicked off the season with a win at Atlanta Motor Speedway and three weeks later at Martinsville Speedway.
With those two wins early in the season, Keselowski finds the organization in a position to become complacent over the next 20 races leading into the Playoffs. As the leader of the team, Keselowski finds himself in a precarious position: become complacent where they are or continue to push the team forward.
“I think about that every day,” he said. “Every day I wake up in the morning and say, am I better today than I was yesterday. And if I’m not, and if we’re not, we’re going to lose. That’s the simple matter of this. The sport is very dynamic. Technology is changing every day.
“Somewhere out there right now someone is working on the next advancement that’s going to be critical to winning the playoffs, and we don’t know about it. Might be another team, might be someone in our own group. If we stay stagnant, it’s guaranteed we will fall.”
So, what will Keselowski do to push the team? According to him, he will become super annoying and ask questions to make people squirm.
“The only thing I know to do is just be super annoying,” Keselowski said. “That’s really all I know. All I know is to go in and sit in on meetings and ask questions that make people squirm and watch them squirm and watch their face, and when they squirm, are they squirming because they should be squirming or are they squirming because they just don’t want to work?”
“And that’s all I know. I wish I was smarter than that. I wish I was better than that. But all I know how to do is read their body language and see if they’ve got more than I think they’ve got or if this is all we’ve got and push those people.
Despite not having the exact answer, Keselowski understands that it is a difficult task based on how his career has panned out, but he does take more pride when the team does win.