1,000 Greatest Drivers: Brad Keselowski
The winningest Penske driver but definitely not the best.
Eons ago, long before he went to work for Keselowski’s RFK Racing, I occasionally wrote articles for David Smith’s Motorsports Analytics in 2013, but after I wrote three columns for him, I publicly criticized some of his work in the racing-reference comments section as well as basically calling him a shill for his support of the NASCAR playoffs, most of which he had expressed in private emails that were not supposed to be shared. I was justifiably fired for this although I was only writing for exposure, but it does make me wonder sometimes whether I’d have broken through to the NASCAR industry like Smith or the Auto Racing Analytics guy did if I hadn’t had a history of shooting myself in the foot. I’m like the Robby Gordon of analysts. You can see the roots of my analysis of lead changes beginning to take shape in the Motorsports Analytics columns I linked there and I fully acknowledge Smith’s influence on me and how Racermetrics would probably never have existed if he hadn’t given me a shot, but I wanted to bring him up for a different reason.
I read Smith on and off for twenty years and I actually enjoyed him most in his early years as a talent scout in the 2000s before he pivoted to statistical analysis. I feel I learned much more from his scouting work than his statistical analysis, and I think his five-part series Anatomy of a Racer from 2005 when he was a mere pup of twenty was the best thing he has ever written or will write. Sort of splitting the difference between his later statistical columns and the raconteur style of Matt McLaughlin (my favorite NASCAR columnist growing up), he split all the NASCAR stars from days of yore into groups of five styles, Gunslingers, Conservatives, Cerebral Warriors, Blue Collar Workers, and Aggressors. Some of it hilariously did not age well, particularly his classifying Kyle Busch as a Conservative, but I liked the classifications. Much like how I felt Smith was better as a talent scout than an analyst, I also felt that way about Keselowski as a driver (that he was actually more successful as a scout than a driver, despite being a very successful driver). It doesn’t surprise me that they hooked up.
Keselowski seems like the personification of what Smith wrote about Cerebral Warriors back then: “In the case of NASCAR, a mind is a terrible thing to pass up. The ability to outwit your competitors is something that only specific athletes can harness. Only a handful of drivers can utilize it. A lot of different characteristics make up the anatomy of various racers, but there is only one anatomical part that links the Cerebral Warriors together: the brain. There is no bigger weapon in sports.” I remember back in the day how everybody used to give Paul Wolfe primary credit for all his strategy wins, but it seems in retrospect that Brad successfully called most of his own strategies, which is why he ended up with a far greater career than his raw talent would imply. I was never particularly a fan of him or most of his contemporary stars in his peak years, but he does seem like he exemplified Smith’s model driver.
