Interview from Ford Perforance
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Consumer Cellular Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I’ll fire us off. I know there are probably three things you probably want to ask me about. I’m gonna take the easiest one first. I just ran at Las Vegas. I don’t know where we’re gonna end up on the board, but my car is really good and I’m excited about it. We’ve had a lot of changes with the team, obviously, over the last few weeks and I feel like our cars are reasonable and this is one of the best cars I’ve had at Vegas in a while, so I’m looking forward to getting going on Sunday.
The second part, you’re gonna ask me about everything that happened this week. That’s okay. I’d ask the same questions. There’s a lot I can’t talk about at this time. It’s got to play out, but it’s been a hell of a ride. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve gotten to do with RFK and my career is not over by any means. There are a lot ot things to still work out. I can’t really go into details of how we got to where we are, at least not at this time until a few more things kind of develop, which probably brings me to the third part of where I’m going and what I’m gonna do.
I’ve had a pretty good idea that this was in the works for the last few months. I’ve had a few people reach out before then and I’m just kind of gathering all the opportunities to see what makes sense and then we’ll make a decision in the next couple of months or so. So, that’s kind of the lowdown. I obviously can’t talk too much about all things RFK, but I appreciate the interest. It’s been an interesting week to say the least, full of highs and lows. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the different fan reactions and media attention this has garnered. I did not expect that, but I appreciate it and we’ll see what it goes. With that, I’ll stop.”
HOW DID IT GET TO THIS POINT? “Again, I can’t go too much into all things RFK, at least not today.”
WHAT CAN YOU GO INTO? “Really nothing, other than what’s been put out in the statement at this point.”
WHY IS NOW THE TIME FOR THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND TO PART WAYS? “I had a five-year contract with RFK Racing and this was the end of the contract.”
ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT YOUR FUTURE? “Any athlete should be worried about their future in a sport that has churned. I wouldn’t say I’m not worried, but I like some of the things that have been thrown at me and I’m waiting at a few more things to be thrown at me and I think I’m gonna be okay.”
ANY INTEREST IN BEING A TRIPLE CROWN CHAMPION IN NASCAR? “Absolutely. I’m not ready to divulge any of that yet, but that’s something I’m absolutely interested in. That’s not my only interest, so we’ll see what plays out.”
DO YOU HAVE TO BE BOUGHT OUT OF YOUR CURRENT OWNERSHIP DEAL TO SIGN WITH A NON-FORD TEAM? “I’m still working through that, so I really don’t have an answer to that at this point.”
IS THIS THE END OF BRAD KESELOWSKI AS AN OWNER IN THIS SPORT? “Doubtful. We’ll see. I can’t answer that right now.”
DO YOU STILL WANT TO BE AN OWNER? “I still love this sport and I want to be around long after my days of driving are done, so we’ll see.”
IS THERE ANY PATHWAY WHERE YOU’RE STILL IN THE 6 CAR NEXT YEAR? “I can’t comment on that at this time.”
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED OVER YOUR FIVE YEARS IN THIS ROLE? “A bunch. I hate to see the experience go through this kind of road bump. It’s part of the process and I understand that, but I’ve grown through this process. I’m super comfortable with my abilities to own and operate a team. I feel like I can do it at the highest levels. I’m bullish on the future to do it. That wouldn’t have been possible without this experience.”
WAS THAT FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT AS A DRIVER AND SEPARATE FROM BEING AN OWNER? “Yes.”
ARE YOU CONFIDENT YOU WILL BE DRIVING SOMETHING NEXT YEAR? “When I’m in a vehicle in Daytona I’ll be confident of that, but right now I think there’s enough interest where I’m not saying I’m not sweating it, that’s not true. There are things to work through, but there’s enough interest to where I’m confident that I’ll be somewhere next year.”
BUESCHER DIDN’T SEEM TO THINK YOU WOULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN. “I like Chris. He’s a good guy despite my Consumer Cellular commercial. I like Chris.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU WILL BE IN CUP OR ARE YOU OPEN TO OTHER THINGS? “I’m open to everything. I’m just gonna look for the best opportunity that comes at me and then make a decision from there.”
WAS THE OWNERSHIP OPPORTUNITY EVERYTHING THAT WAS PROMISED TO YOU WHEN IT STARTED? “Again, I’m not gonna get into all things RFK – not at this time.”
ARE YOU GOING TO RACE FULL-TIME FOR SURE? “I don’t know. Like I said, the next month or two things will become a lot clearer and then I’ll cover it from there.”
DID YOU TALK TO ANYBODY LIKE ROGER BEFORE YOU MADE THIS DECISION? “No, but I’ve got a lot of phone calls over the last few days as you can imagine, but I think there were some people that were caught off guard by things that happened here over the last few days and that generated a lot of phone calls, but we’ll see what happens.”
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO WALK AWAY FROM WHAT YOU’VE BUILT THE LAST FIVE YEAR? “I’m really proud of the things that we’ve done and the people that I’ve been able to work with and see grow and develop and some of the turnaround story of the company and team. That’s been the thrill of a lifetime to be a part of. You always hate to leave that, lose that, whatever that might be, but it is part of life. It’s kind of like leaving high school, but that’s where we are.”
ARE YOU SETTLED RIGHT NOW? DO YOU FEEL OKAY ABOUT EVERYTHING? “I’m not settled in the sense of having something done, and I know that’s probably one of the questions and a lot of people this week have probably made some assumptions. No, I don’t have anything signed for next year. Like I said, I’m just gonna evaluate everything and see which one makes the most sense.”
BUT YOUR HEART, YOU ARE GOOD. “Yes, I am. I am gonna be okay.”
IS YOUR PRIORITY AT THIS POINT TO WIN RACES IN ANY SERIES VERSUS STAYING IN CUP SPECIFICALLY? “I don’t know if I’ve made that decision yet on what my priority is. Like I said, I just want to evaluate the opportunities and I’ll go where my heart takes me.”
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE EMOTIONS FOR YOU THIS WEEK? “I was really pleasantly surprised by the fan and media reaction. I didn’t expect that, particularly with everything going on related to the Chase and so forth. Probably my biggest emotion just being at the racetrack is humbled to have that level of support. That doesn’t mean that’s the only emotion through the whole process. There have probably been a few moments of anger over the last few weeks as the realities of this have become clearer, but I’m in a good spot now.”
A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE COMPANY SAID YOU CAME IN AND CHANGED THE MINDSET. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE WAYS YOU DID THAT? “Some of that is IP related, so I don’t want to get too deep into that, but I think seeing the culture transform into one that was probably more around tier three to fringe tier one. That’s everything. That’s what this sport is. It’s the people drive where you go and seeing that happen and being a part of it is really fun.”
NO HOODIE RULE? “Yeah, year. I probably got a little flack over that. I have my own quirks, but, yes, the no hoodie rule was one of them.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEING WITH THE TEAM TODAY? “No. There’s been a lot of transition in the team over the last few weeks as well with different people – crew members, pit crew members, crew chiefs – and so that transition with those people has made it easier for this transition in kind of a weird way.”
HOW INVOLVED WERE YOU IN THE COMPETITION PROCESS? “My role with RFK was obviously to drive the 6 car. I had a partial ownership of the team alongside that and kind of lastly is kind of competition director of sorts, which is more of a vision role than it is a day-to-day role. I’m not in the building ordering steel on a Tuesday and there’s a lot of people that are doing the actual work. My job was more around the vision of the company and trying to lock people into who we are and what we want to be, whether that was recruiting or the other side I wish may not so pleasant, but more strategic for sure.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM JACK ROUSH? “Jack’s number one strength, without a doubt, is he is steadfast in his desire for accountability in all aspects of the business. That was great to see and great to learn from.”
HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH THE FENWAY SPORTS GROUP? “John Henry is a great guy. I’ve spent some time with him and his family and he’s always been really kind to me considering everything else he has in his portfolio, and that’s probably where I would stop.”
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST THING YOU’VE LEARNED THAT YOU WANT TO EMPLOY IN YOUR NEXT OPPORTUNITY? “There are a lot of key learnings, things that I didn’t really fully grasp until I got in the role. One of the biggest thing for me that kept me from being a Cup owner five, 10 years earlier outside of the tremendous team that I had around me at Penske was the vices that I carried from owning a truck team. On that side, the fight to generate sponsorship and to garner the support you needed to get on track was just a dogfight. It was really, really difficult and I carried that bias and that assumption into my probably hesitation to do something at the Cup level at the ownership level and once I finally got into it I was like, ‘Oh, no. This is different.’ So, it was probably my biggest key learning was to break any of the biases that I had from owning a truck team, and then on the flip side there are things that are harder. There are a lot of things that are actually easier on the Cup side than owning the truck team was, so I’m really thankful for that. There were a few things that were harder and you learn how to work through that, particularly the management of such a large group of people – 200-plus people versus 30 or 40 that runs a truck team – so I think breaking those biases was the biggest learning for me.”
WHO HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST SUPPORTER THROUGH THIS WHOLE PROCESS? “I don’t know it’s still pretty early. I’ve had a number of people reach out, friends, family. It kind of sounds sappy to say, but always my mom. God bless moms.”
WHAT ABOUT THE DRIVERS. SEVERAL CAME IN AND PRAISED YOU. WHAT KIND OF MESSAGES HAVE YOU RECEIVED AND WERE YOU EXPECTING THOSE MESSAGES? “Not necessarily. Like I said, I didn’t expect anybody to really pay as much attention. I’m just glad that people care. I’ve turned the page pretty quick into what’s next rather than where we’re at today, so I haven’t put a lot of thought into all that stuff. I’m not that sentimental.”
YOU ARE A BIG BELIEVER IN FAILING FORWARD. HOW WILL YOU FAIL FORWARD FROM THIS POINT? “We’ll see in the next 60 days, but I’m pretty confident it’s gonna be good.”
WHY WERE YOU SURPRISED ABOUT THE ATTENTION THIS GOT? “I don’t know. We all live in our own bubbles and I’m no different than anyone else. It’s so different on social media – we’ll come out with a post and we think, ‘Man, this is gonna do great.’ And nobody follows it. And then there will be one that we kind of just throw out there and it blows up. We have no idea. I don’t know what people care about and what they don’t. I live in my own bubble and you generate those understandings forward and they don’t always carry to others.”
WAS THIS YOUR DECISION OR WAS IT MADE FOR YOU? “I would say that it will become clear in time and I’ll be able to share more about that later.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Autotrader Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I definitely think that was our best intermediate qualifying of the year. We were in the thirties this time in the spring, so our guys did a great job. Having a good draw helps as well, going out that late gives a lot of confidence to watch other cars and know what to do. I thought we made a lot of progress in a short amount of time in our Autotrader Ford Mustang in practice and obviously it showed in qualifying trim.” DO YOU FEEL WHAT YOU LEARNED LAST WEEK IS APPLYING SO FAR THIS WEEKEND? “It’s hard to tell. With today’s temperatures being so wide-ranging, it will be interesting to see what a long run looks like. Nobody really got a long run in due to the cautions in practice, so it was pretty impressive to see some of the fire off pace of some of the other cars, at least from our sake definitely not hoping that doesn’t translate for the race because obviously qualifying well, but the qualifying trim stuff and making sure we can hang on restarts and stuff. It seemed like our long run pace was decent, but we kind of never got to see it. I’m excited for tomorrow and see what we can translate.” HOW WAS THE TEMPERATURE OUT THERE? “It honestly doesn’t feel that hot. I know I’m sweaty and stuff, but so is everybody who has been sitting outside. We’ve had worse this year. The Darlington-Gateway back-to-back stretch, that one was rough, but, otherwise, not too bad.”
Josh Berry, driver of the No. 21 eero Ford Mustang Dark Horse, was involved in an accident during practice and provided the following comments after being released from the infield care center.
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 eero Ford Mustang Dark Horse – A LOT OF LEFT-REAR TIRE ISSUES IN THIS PRACTICE. WAS THAT YOUR ISSUE? “Yeah, I’m fine first of all. I wasn’t sure if it was the left-rear or the right-rear. I thought it was the left-rear, but when I got loaded up into one and two on the bottom I just felt a few vibrations and then it was gone. I definitely didn’t feel it coming otherwise I would have come in, so it was unfortunate to have that happen. The guys will work hard this evening and get us a car together and we’ll do the best we can tomorrow.” HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO TALK TO YOUR TEAM ABOUT A BACKUP? “I’m sure it’ll be a backup car. It was a pretty good hit. I haven’t had a chance to talk to them yet, but they’ll put in the work and do the best they can to get us setup for tomorrow and we’ll try to make something of it.”
