Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Brad Keselowski, who this week makes his 13th appearance in the NASCAR playoffs. Keselowski, a driver and co-owner at RFK Racing, enters this year’s playoffs as the No. 8 seed. This interview has been edited and condensed, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions podcast.
1. What is currently the No. 1 thing on your bucket list?
If I understand “bucket list” — making sure we’re on the same definition — it’s something you want to do before you die. So something I want to do before I die is win another championship in NASCAR. That’s No. 1.
2. How much media coverage of NASCAR do you consume?
A fair amount. I don’t know how to quantify it though. When (Fox’s) “Race Hub” was on, I tried to watch that a couple times a week. But now that it’s not on, (in terms of) TV form? Probably an hour a week. In social-media form? Probably a couple hundred tweets a week. There’s not a time quotient.
3. Beyond winning, what is the best way to measure success in racing?
Longevity. Usually it’s a good sign when people still want you to be around. That’s not limited to motorsport. If you think of most businesses and there’s somebody who has been there for 20 or 30 years, that’s a pretty good sign he’s probably a good employee. Or they have dirt on somebody. But most likely the former, not the latter.
4. What is an opinion you have about NASCAR that you don’t think is shared by the fans?
A hybrid in NASCAR would be a good thing for the sport, and there are a lot of fans who don’t think that. They don’t like the idea of hybrids and certainly hate the idea of electric vehicles. Hybrid is too close to that electric vehicle line, and they’re like, “Nah, it’s bad.”
Why do you think it would be good?
Well, I’d like to see it used as a Push-to-Pass (like in IndyCar). It would be good for OEMs (manufacturers). Complicated for expenses related to it, but I think it’d be fun.
5. What is the biggest thing fans don’t realize about what you do for a living?
Hands down, people think we just drive the race car on a weekend. And they’re like, “So what do you do Monday through Friday?” (Laughs.) Prepare to drive the race car or talk about what we did and try to learn from it.
That makes it so amazing to me when you see a guy like Kyle Larson who runs a sprint car race on a Tuesday or Wednesday. I saw him last week at driver intros and I’m like, “How did you even run that?” He said, “I got on a commercial flight.” And dirt racing is easier because they just race at night, right? They’re not there all morning. He said, “I get on a plane, I land at two or three o’clock, I’ll run the race, and then I’ll fly the redeye home.” I said, “Wow. But what about all your other commitments?” “Oh, you know, I just got out of them somehow.” Which is interesting. But it’s tough. It’s a seven-day-a-week job for us.
6. So this next one is a hot topic related to yourself. On X, you recently responded to the results of a survey that said 33 percent of Americans think they can complete a racing lap at speed and 6 percent think they can win a NASCAR race. You did the math and you found it’s more like .0000003 percent. So what can be done (by the) NASCAR industry to narrow the ignorance gap of how difficult racing really is?
People connect driving a car to driving a race car, and there is somewhat of a natural connection. That’s good for us, that people connect driving a car. So it’s not all bad.
But the reality is we’re driving a car to its limits, which is a far cry from just driving a car. We’re at a threshold of speed and grip that, at any second, it can all go wrong. And if we’re good at it, which you have to be at this level, you make it look like you’re not at that threshold. People will say, “Oh, did you see that guy save his race car that spun out?” Well, the best save is the one you never make. It’s the one where you’re like, “I’m so in control that I’m really sliding around the corner but you can’t even tell.” That’s what a great race car driver does.
You watch the dirt races and they’re driving sideways; they’re literally sliding through the corner. But if you watch a dirt race long enough, they look in control. No, they’re not really; they’re just really good drivers. So that can go for you or go against you, and I choose not to look at how it goes against you.
7. This is a wild-card question. It’s been a year and a half since we’ve done our last 12 Questions, and you’ve had another addition to your family since then. So I wanted to know: How has the adjustment been going from two kids to three?
It’s been pretty good. We finally have a boy in the family, which is good. If it was another girl, it might be harder. But seeing how it’s a boy, everybody is like, “Oh, this is different.” And they’re not competitive against each other. Having two girls, they are very competitive against each other. Now that it’s a boy, it’s like having a dog to them. (Laughs.) It’s like a different species, so they don’t have to compete against it.
I’m very fortunate. I’ve got great kids, and I feel very blessed by that. But specifically Maize, who is our youngest, and as of this interview, nine months old, he’s just a really great baby. He sleeps well, eats well, he’s not particularly fussy. So that makes it really good. Ultimately, the impact has been fairly low.
8. What do you like about the place you grew up? Rochester Hills, Michigan.
Rochester Hills is just a tremendous place to be from. It had all four seasons, which is good for you. It had really smart, educated people, and by osmosis, that meant you had to be (smart) too, just to fit in. It was fairly safe, clean, all those things. I felt lucky to be raised there.
9. What personality trait are you the most proud of?
Being relentless. That has served me really, really well.
“That’s good for us,” Brad Keselowski of people who think they could drive in NASCAR. “But the reality is we’re driving a car to its limits, which is a far cry from just driving a car.” (Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
10. Which driver would you least like to be stuck with on an elevator?
I’m trying to think of someone who passes gas a lot. (Laughs.) Nobody else thought of it that way, did they? My mind thinks differently.
I don’t know if I really have anybody I wouldn’t want to be on an elevator with. I’m not really harboring a lot of negative emotions at the moment. Maybe (Martin) Truex or something, because we’d be talking about his retirement and I don’t want to think like that.
11. What is a run-in you’ve had with a driver that TV or the media missed?
There’s been a bunch of them, actually. There’s some I’m not ready to tell. I’m going to save a couple of them for when I’m all done.
I had a run-in with Kevin Harvick in 2014 at the end of the Loudon race, which was almost a precursor to the Texas incident (in which Harvick shoved Keselowski toward Jeff Gordon, igniting a large brawl).
I had a really fast car, sat on the pole that day, led a bunch of laps, and toward the end of the race, there was a yellow. Harvick and I were racing for the lead, but my teammate Joey Logano had pitted and put four tires on. I was racing Kevin side-by-side for the lead, and Joey got into me, and when he got into me, I got into Harvick. Nobody wrecked or anything like that, but enough to where we were all just sideways and out of control.
After the race, I just walked up to him to tell him, “Hey, good race” and to say I got hit from behind. And he was really, really upset. Like really upset and just started screaming, shouting and was ready to throw a punch at me. I’m like, “Whoa, whoa. Get back to me after you’ve calmed down.” And I walked away.
I got on a golf cart and I rode back to the motorhome lot. At that time, I had this trailer toterhome setup, so you had to walk up the stairs. I walked up the stairs and a friend of mine was behind me. I opened the door and turned in, and I heard some screaming and shouting, but I wasn’t really paying any attention because I was like, “The race is over. I’m gonna go change and I’m gonna get the hell out of here.”
So I walk in, I get changed, take a shower, get in the rental car and as I’m on the way back to the airport, the friend of mine who was with me says, “Yeah, Kevin came back and he wanted to fight in the bus lot. I just told him, ‘Get out of here.’ We had a little tussle and he left.”
I was like, “Wow. How did I miss that? You’re telling me this now?!” It was an interesting season.
And then he shoved you in the Texas incident a couple months later.
Yeah. So I don’t know if that was a precursor, but it kind of looks like it was.
12. Each week, I ask the driver to give me a question for the next person. The last one was with Ross Chastain, and he says: Seedless or seeded watermelon?
I’m sorry, Ross, I don’t eat watermelon. I got sick off of watermelon when I was a kid and I’ve never eaten it since. You know how you have foods that once you get sick on them, you can’t eat them again? Well, mine was watermelon.
That happened to me with coffee cake for some reason. Now I never eat it.
You can’t touch it. It’s like you have this mental predisposition. But my kids love it, if that makes you feel any better. They’ll eat either kind and I’ll serve them either kind, but I don’t eat watermelon.
That did not go the way Ross was hoping it would go.
The next interview is with Juan Pablo Montoya heading into Watkins Glen. Do you have a question I can ask him?
This is one I don’t know if you’ve ever asked before, but it would be fun to hear from any driver: In your own definition, what makes you good at being a racer? In your own words, what makes you good?
GO DEEPER
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(Top photo of Brad Keselowski at last month’s Michigan race: Logan Riely / Getty Images)
