Keselowski is set next season in both Sprint Cup and Nationwide series

Posted Friday, Nov. 06, 2009 Comments   (0) Print Share Share Reprints
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By CARLOS MENDEZ

cmendez@star-telegram.com

Brad Keselowski is headed for a full-time ride in the Sprint Cup series, starting this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

It is where every driver wants to end up, in the top series in NASCAR, and he’ll work for one of the most respected owners in auto racing, Roger Penske.

But Keselowski is not leaving the Nationwide Series behind. He enters today’s O’Reilly Challenge in third place in the points standings in his No. 88 Chevrolet, which he drives for JR Motorsports.

Next year, he’ll drive a Nationwide car for Penske, too. He won’t turn down the chance to pull double duty in NASCAR’s top two series.

"It’s fun. I like the people over there. I like the series. I like the officials," he said of the Nationwide competition. "I like racing on Saturdays. I don’t want to sit in my motor home and watch it on TV. My family’s over there. My brother. And I want to win a championship. I want to win a championship at that level."

In both series, the 25-year-old driver will now have the resources of a full-time team committed to him alone. That’s a new experience for Keselowski, who can’t be blamed for feeling like a kid a couple of days away from Christmas.

"Yeah, I’m in a brand-new fire suit. They built a brand-new race car for me — I’ve never had that," he said. "I’ve never had a team that on the very first race built a brand-new race car. That’s awesome. That shows the commitment they have to me."

Now Keselowski believes he must repay the commitment. He wants to put every bit of knowledge he has picked up in his Cup time with Hendrick Motorsports to work on his Penske programs, starting with the final three Cup races of the season and extending to the winter preparations for his Nationwide ride.

He’s the new kid in the shop, but he promises not to be shy.

"I don’t want to sound like I’m going to fix everything at Penske, because that’s not right," he said. "I feel like we are going to fix everything at Penske. ... I’m not going to come in and be quiet, that’s for sure. I’m going to do everything I can to get this program running and off the ground from Day One. I want us to go to Daytona and be a contender and be a team that you guys say can be a team in the Chase."

But Keselowski’s mind will not drift far from his immediate work in the Nationwide series. He’ll start seventh when the green flag drops this morning for the O’Reilly Challenge, looking for a second consecutive victory after winning at Memphis two weeks ago.

He wants to be in a similar position next year in his new Nationwide car.

"The anticipation for me is to be competitive, to do what we’ve been able to do this year, which is to win races and be a threat to win a championship," he said. "But we’ve got our work cut out for us. At this time, the team does not even exist. And it looks like Carl Edwards is going to run full time again next year, so we’ve got our work cut out for us. But I see signs that Penske is committed to Justin Allgaier and me having two of the best teams in the series next year."

Carlos Mendez, 817-390-7760

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