Raybestos Rookie Brad Keselowski scored a career-best sixth-place finish last weekend at Texas and has taken top rookie honors five times this season entering Saturday’s event at Phoenix.
This past Wednesday, Keselowski visited the Navy Medical Center in San Diego. While there he met some of the Navy’s Wounded Warriors who are currently receiving care as they recover from injuries sustained in the line of duty.
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 88 U.S. NAVY CHEVROLET: “I’m really looking forward to this weekend with this car and actually the next two weekends. We’ve got the Texas car going to Homestead and ran very strong there. The next two weeks look really good for the U.S. NAVY Chevrolet.” HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO COMPETE AGAINST THE CUP GUYS HERE IN THE BUSCH SERIES ON A WEEKLY BASIS? “It’s really difficult [laughs]. If you look at it, I think we’ve only had maybe two winners this year that aren’t Cup drivers and they were at two tracks where the NEXTEL Cup drivers weren’t there. Our last two events are with the NEXTEL Cup drivers so it’s very difficult to run with them. The track time makes a big difference, there’s no doubt about that. Obviously they’re very talented, too, and they’re in good equipment. They are not in backmarker equipment. I feel like we might have something to run with 'em the next two races but just to be able to get top-10s and top-fives is a pretty big accomplishment right now.” WHAT DO YOU LEARN WHEN YOU ARE RACING GREG BIFFLE OR MATT KENSETH? “You know, it seems like when you figure out what you need to do better then something comes out and shows you that you were wrong. I felt like I was making some mistakes the last few weeks and then we put together that car for Texas and it was so I was like maybe I’m not making mistakes. Maybe it was just the car. You kind of go back and forth in your head there but when you are running around Matt and Kevin I just really impressed how aware they are of where they’re at on the racetrack and that’s the things that you pick up when you are around ‘em.” HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO LEARN HOW TO MANAGE COMPETITION, SPONSOR AND MEDIA RESPONSIBILITIES? “It’s a balancing act of trying to stay focused on what you have
to do to be competitive and then try to keep all the sponsors and media happy so you have the money to be competitive. That’s a tough balance. I guess you kind of go with whichever one is the squeaky wheel. If you’re not competitive you work on that. If the sponsors are unhappy you work on that. It’s definitely a tough balancing act.” ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR PERFORMANCE THIS YEAR? “Yeah I think so. Obviously we want to be out there winning but we’re making progress and if we keep making the progress we have over the last three races we’ll get there.” HOW CLOSE ARE YOU TO WINNING A POLE OR WINNING A RACE? “I feel like last week, looking at what Jeff Burton did a Charlotte, starting in the back like we did but he caught some breaks. The top-five fell out with attrition with Carl and Matt and them all wrecking. I felt like if we just caught some breaks we could have won the race at Texas and we just never caught any breaks, so I feel like we’re just a couple of breaks away from being where we need to be to win races. We’re almost where we need to be competitive-wise and we’re closing on it fast and I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t close in on it these next two weeks. But then we need to catch some breaks. We haven’t caught any real breaks yet this year and when that happens we’ll be up there and we’ll have a shot.” COMMENT ON YOUR VISIT TO THE NAVY MEDICAL CENTER. “I had a great time. It’s one of the awesome opportunities the Navy provides and part of their serialization process for me to learn what it takes for me to be a part of the Navy team. To get to meet with all the soldiers was a neat experience and the sailors as well and all of the Wounded Warriors out there and see what they go through in the whole Navy process. I’m just really proud of everything that goes with that and the Navy is looking for doctors and nurses to join their team and trying to learn what it takes to become that. There were a lot of people there that were a lot worse off than I am. It’s a tough experience to go through and I certainly don’t wish that on anyone. But to get to learn what it takes to get them better and getting back to where they need to be in their lives is quite an experience and something that I’ll remember for a long time to come. I’m just real proud of the sacrifices they’ve made for us.” DID YOU MEET A LOT OF RACE FANS? “Yeah, you know, I was really surprised by that. Everyone of them
seemed to be a race fan. They knew about the Busch Series and about the cars. A couple of ‘em had blankets and different pillows and stuff of different race car drivers so that was pretty interesting.”
