Brad Keselowski has not been making any friends in the last two weeks. The 2012 Sprint Cup Series champion has been irritating other drivers – namely current and former champions – with overaggressive driving that has the fabricating shops of multiple race teams working overtime.
The 30-year-old driver from Rochester Hill, Mich. had a nightmare of a race last weekend at the massive Talladega Superspeedway.
Troubles for Keselowski began early in the race while running at the front. While battling for the lead with Danica Patrick on lap 14, Keselowski and Patrick made slight contact which sent his No.2 Miller Lite Ford sliding down the turn 1 apron and then up the track surface. While no one got into Keselowski during the ordeal, he did happen flat spot one of his tires during the slide. The flat spot eventually tore his engine’s water lines off which caused the cooling system to fail and forced pit-road repairs by the crew; Keselowski would eventually lose more than six laps to the competition.
But Keselowski’s day would not get better.
Feeling he had to make up the laps on his own, Keselowski attempted to aggressively drive through the field in final 60 laps of the race. While making this attempt, Keselowski’s left rear made slight contact with Greg Biffle’s right front as the field entered turn 1 on lap 136. Less than half a lap later, Keselowski lost control of his car in turn 4 and collected 13 more cars in the process which included Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart.
Furious that a driver six laps down at superspeedway was the main reason for the wreck, several of NASCAR’s most respected drivers and crew members lashed out at Keselowski for the unnecessary aggression throughout the race.
“Really good thing Super Brad was out there (expletive) around, six laps down and wrecked the field,” said crew chief Chad Knaus just moments after his driver, Jimmie Johnson, was involved in the crash.
“Brad made a pretty bold move early, mind-boggling move I guess you can say and go in front of Danica and spun out in front of the field and got away with it,” Kenseth said in the garage. “(He) just spun out in front of all of us and tore up a bunch of good racecars. (It’s) really unfortunate.”
But in every controversy there is always two sides to the story and Keselowski had his.
“We were just trying really hard to get our lap back there and we couldn’t catch any yellows or any breaks, so I had to be really aggressive and hope for something to happen our way and I had to be up towards the front,” Keselowski said after the crash. “I feel bad that we got cars tore up and we were laps down when we did it, but we’re trying to race too and it just didn’t work out for us. It was a long day with the Miller Lite Ford.”
While Keselowski tried to explain his reasoning for racing that aggressively, drivers still could not agree with the former Sprint Cup champion. In fact, Kenseth questioned whether Keselowski was hypocrite on the track.
”If it was the other way around and it was anybody else except for him, we’d all be getting lectured,” Kenseth said.
”It’s extra frustrating when the car’s six laps down out there, making some of the moves he was making,” Gordon further added after the being involved in the crash. “That was disappointing, but everybody’s got a right to race. He was trying to do something. I’m just not sure what.'”
Had this been Keselowski’s first incident of the season, this incident might have been dealt with less criticism and scrutiny. But unfortunately this was Keselowski’s second major incident in as many weeks.
Two weeks ago at Richmond, Keselowski was involved in three altercations with Kenseth during the race, post-race and on pit road. The first incident occurred when Kenseth and Keselowski bumped around for the victory with less than five laps to go – both would lose out. Shortly after the race concluded, Keselowski brake-checked Kenseth in turns 1 and 2 which severely damaged both cars, along with minor damage to both Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. And finally, Keselowski expressed his displeasure with Kenseth by pointing at him on pit road and then criticized the 2003 champion’s racing tactics late in the race.
It doesn’t matter whether you are Brad Keselowski, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson or Danica Patrick. If you criticize another driver’s driving and then wreck one third of the field just one week later as a lap-down car, public opinion is not going to be very positive of you.
NASCAR’s extensive community runs just like the real world. It takes a driver, crew member and team owner years to earn the respect and trust of their fellow peers. But all that effort can go away in a few weeks or days if you drop the ball enough times.
After winning the 2012 Sprint Cup Series championship, Keselowski was on top of the world. He beat the sport’s best and earned their respect in the process.
But more run-ins of this magnitude will eventually cause Keselowski’s peers to be weary and untrusting of the brash, Michigan native.
One thing that Keselowski might not have taken into serious account is the high standards that drivers, teams, fans and media members hold champions – current and former – to.
“He’s a champion, and I think with champions, you expect a little bit more out of them,” Gordon said this past Wednesday. “He’s aggressive, and that’s part of the reason why he’s been successful. But I think there’s a fine line between being aggressive and being smart or not being smart.”
Keselowski is walking a fine line that not many champions have walked – he is slowly losing the respect of his peers. And once a driver loses respect, trust will soon follow.
Keselowski is a proud and young champion. He likes to go about things his own way, no matter what the public thinks. But he may want start thinking twice during races.
Because at the pace he’s going, his reputation in the garage will eventually change from champion to scrub.
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