RFK Racing co-owner and driver Brad Keselowski is within the early levels of what might wind up being his hardest NASCAR Cup Sequence season but. But it surely hasn’t been for a scarcity of on-track efficiency.
Keselowski continues to cope with the lingering results of a damaged femur, suffered in a freak accident throughout a December ski journey together with his household. He’s spent hours rehabbing the damage each day, however regardless of a cane in hand and a noticeable limp, the 41-year-old has turned each lap over the primary three points-paying races of the 2026 marketing campaign. His standing for final week’s highway course race at Circuit of The Americas was admittedly in jeopardy, however the 2012 titleholder elected to powerful it out relatively than flip his No. 6 Ford over to stand-by driver Joey Hand. The Michigander completed twentieth, salvaging 17 factors out of the sequence’ annual journey to Austin, Texas.
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In his fifth 12 months proudly owning the Jack Roush-formed firm, Keselowski led by instance. Ryan Preece definitely observed.
“I’ve lived it,” mentioned the motive force of RFK’s No. 60 Ford, competing in his second season with the group.
Preece has battled loads of adversity all through this Cup profession, each on and off the observe. He raced in an unchartered No. 37 Chevrolet for JTG-Daugherty Racing Chevrolet for the whole 2021 season, needing to qualify on velocity for every of the 36 races on the schedule. A 12 months later, Preece went and not using a full-time trip in any of NASCAR’s three nationwide sequence, acknowledging after his win on this that, at occasions, he was near transferring again to Connecticut and giving up on his dream.
The now 35-year-old landed with Stewart-Haas Racing for 2 seasons earlier than the group shut its doorways. In 2023, his first season driving the group’s No. 41 Ford, Preece went for a in the course of the summer season race at Daytona, barrel rolling over a dozen occasions down the backstretch earlier than lastly touchdown on all fours. He exited below his personal energy and was transported to an area hospital for additional analysis.
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Preece went house the following day. Per week later, with bloodied eyes almost swollen shut, he returned to his automotive at Darlington Raceway.
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“I can recognize it as a result of the issues that I’m going to place myself via to race, so is Brad,” Precce mentioned throughout a Wednesday media teleconference. “I’ve discovered fairly shortly that he and I are very related within the facets of what we’re going to place ourselves via to compete and present others that we are going to do no matter it takes to race, to competitively try to win and put our groups in place.
“I do know there was quite a lot of dialog final week at COTA round, man, is Brad going to race? However as a race automotive driver, what I see him doing every single day, after which as a race automotive driver, like, you weren’t taking him out of that race automotive since you wouldn’t take me out of that race automotive. So I believe, , as a racer and the household that he got here from and the household that I come from, we’re taught at a really younger age — that’s what makes us totally different. We’re prepared to do no matter it takes to compete.”
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To a unique diploma, Preece battled his personal adversity final Sunday. He was amongst a gaggle of drivers, together with , who suffered cool go well with failures over 95 laps within the scorching Texas warmth. Preece completed 18th, marking his greatest end on the 17-turn highway course in his final 4 journeys.
“I used to be loads beat up or feeling it a bit, however I used to be loads advantageous to drive that race automotive to its capacity,” Preece defined, reflecting on the weekend. “These are the races that outline you and your race group. Yeah, 18th was the tip end result, however between yesterday and right now, I’ve been fascinated by, been going again and watching some on-car (cameras) from different automobiles round us, and doubtless some issues that I might’ve achieved higher to get us to a sixteenth or fifteenth, perhaps. However that’s the secret. You’re going to have days the place you want you’d’ve achieved issues just a little totally different or reacted to conditions just a little totally different, however the deal is you bought to maneuver ahead to the following week.
“The clock resets at midnight, and you progress on. That’s what our focus is: transferring onto Phoenix.”
By way of three races, all three RFK groups sit inside the highest 16 of factors, headlined by Chris Buescher in eleventh. Keselowski is twelfth after almost pulling off a Daytona 500 victory, with Preece in sixteenth. Spire Motorsports is the one different group with all of its automobiles contained in the provisional cutoff for The Chase.
