Brad Keselowski comes from a family of racing professionals. On the occasion of his 600th start in the Cup Series, Keselowski took a moment to acknowledge the work his father, Bob Keselowski, put in to help him get there.

Ahead of this 600th NASCAR race, Keselowski was speaking to the press when a journalist asked what he reflected on as the most important thing that he learnt from his parents, and his answer was filled with emotion.

“Well, my dad was just a flat-out work ethic guy, and growing up with them(and uncle Ron Keselowski), they made sure I knew that no matter whatever I did in my life, I would never work as hard as they did, and they were right,” said Brad.

He highlighted how supportive his parents were during his early years.

“I remember mom and dad drove to every race track, they drove to California for a race. I do not do that," said Keselowski.

While many may imagine that coming from a racing background would enable Keselowski to have easy access to cars. However, his father ensured that was never the case and taught him a valuable lesson growing up.

“I remember watching him in the truck series, and he had two race trucks, and both he wrecked in two consecutive weeks, and then had no truck to race in the next week. I remember him working three all-nighters,” said Keselowski.

Having started his career over two decades ago, Keselowski has already given a lot to racing, not just as a driver, but also as an owner of a team. Aged 42, he could call it quits on his illustrious career, but there is another goal to be achieved.

Keselowski’s next milestone

His 600th race finished with him placed 13th in the standings.

The 2012 champion is already looking ahead to his next milestone.

“I’ve still got a lot more left in me. I want to get past 800, so that’s a lot more races,” said Keselowski during the qualifying broadcast at Martinsville Speedway.

Given the 36-race calendar, Keselowski will need to race for at least five years to reach the 800 starts mark.

It’s not unrealistic, but it’s rather exciting to think that Keselowski wants to race that long; his recent 5th place finish in Daytona, and 2nd in Darlington, show that he's clearly got it, and RFK’s recent upward graph means Keselowski wants to see the team towards a meteoric rise before retiring from the sport.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri