Brad Keselowski ended a 110-race winless drought and scored his first win with RFK Racing in Sunday’s (May 12) Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway. It was the exclamation point of a long climb for not only Keselowski to return to prominence, but for RFK to reemerge as one of NASCAR’s most formidable teams.
RFK — then known as Roush Racing — was a dominant force in the late 90s and mid-2000s as it contended for wins and championships, winning back-to-back titles in 2003 with Matt Kenseth and then in 2004 with Kurt Busch. Other drivers like Mark Martin, Jeff Burton and Carl Edwards were all superstars for the team.
They were running up front with Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, but somewhere down the road, things slowly fell apart. The team became a two-car operation, a shell of its former glory in performance. They were the biggest team at one point, with five drivers racing for them before NASCAR reduced the maximum number of cars a team can field to four.
Greg Biffle was asked about from his perspective what caused that downward spiral when he was there and on his way out from leaving.
“It needed an infusion of something to turn it around,” Biffle said. “Unfortunately, I made my exit when I did because of competition, and Brad was that guy to come in and upset the apple cart so to speak, to get people to think outside the box. You can see that steady progression, the last few weeks have been a testament to that.
“It’s so hard to pinpoint, we were in those meetings week after week, my frustration was you have to recognize there’s an issue and not try and tell yourself that you’re going to be better the next week and keep doing the same thing. You have to make those painful decisions that something has to change, hope is great but you need action to change.”
Keselowski became a Cup Series champion in 2012 for Penske and eventually left the team to become an owner of the newly branded RFK Racing in 2022. With RFK’s performance, many fans and industry workers wondered why he would go from a competitive team to start over at a place that is a shell of its former self.
“I heard from some fans, I can’t believe you’re throwing your career away, and then you’re kind of like, well, maybe they’re right,” Keselowski said. “But then on the flipside, I was looking at the sport and I’m just thinking to myself that if I dig…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …