Brad Keselowski is on pace to have the worst season of his NASCAR Cup Series career.
To quote A Christmas Carol, “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come” from this article.
After 10 races, the owner/driver for RFK Racing sits 32nd in points, has zero top 10s, hasn’t led a single lap and his average finish of 26.1 would be the worst of his Hall of Fame-worthy career. On top of that, Keselowski has two lead-lap finishes this season, meaning he is on pace to have fewer races where he completes all the laps than even 2009, when he only competed in 15 Cup events.
RFK does seem a notch slower than it was in 2024, but not by a lot. Keselowski’s teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece are right in the thick of the playoff battle as both have a top five (Preece had two before his Talladega Superspeedway disqualification) and multiple top 10s. Both have been faster on average through the course of a race weekend, as both have better average starting positions than Keselowski as well.
Yes, Keselowski has had terrible luck along the way, such as getting into a pit road accident last week at Talladega, one of his best tracks. But the speed simply has not been there for the No. 6. His average running position is 23.7, just three spots better than his average finish. Of the laps that he’s run, he’s only spent 28.4% of a race inside the top 15 on average.
At 41 years old, it’s easy for people to point at Keselowski and say that the falloff is due to him being washed up. I don’t buy into that, though. Most drivers don’t decline until after around age 43, so Keselowski should be good for a few more years. Plus, that’s too steep of a falloff from 2024 for age to be the issue. Last year, the 2012 Cup champion won a race, finished 13th in points and had nine top fives, one fewer than his final year at Team Penske. He was overall better than Buescher in 2024. He didn’t forget how to drive just a handful of months later.
One major difference for the No. 6 team this year is that Jeremy Bullins replaced Matt McCall as crew chief. On paper, that should’ve been an upgrade at the position. Both Bullins and McCall have been crew chiefs in Cup for roughly a decade. Bullins has 10 career wins to McCall’s four.
It was also a reunion, as Keselowski and Bullins spent the final two years of the former’s Penske tenure (2020-21) together. The 2020 season was one of the best of Keselowski’s career, seeing him win four times and finish second in points. But five years, a different team and a new generation of car later, maybe the pairing isn’t working out this time around.
I’m not saying Bullins is a bad crew chief. After all, he was critical in winning races early in Ryan Blaney‘s career and helped get the first Cup wins for Blaney, Austin Cindric and Harrison Burton. Blaney and Cindric have both elevated their performance since getting new crew chiefs, but that probably has more to do with them being more experienced now than they were when Bullins was their crew chief.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, pairings that look good on paper don’t play out in real life. Look no further than Rodney Childers joining Spire Motorsports last offseason to be Justin Haley‘s new crew chief. Childers is a champion and 40-time race winner. Kevin Harvick had the best years of his career with Childers on the pit box. But Childers and Spire/Haley didn’t work out as a unit and only lasted nine races.
When things aren’t going well at a race team, the driver ain’t the first thing to go … it’s the crew chief. Which leads to the whole point of this column.
It seems inevitable that the No. 6 team will make a crew chief change if the performance doesn’t improve soon. If Keselowski and Bullins do split up, then there’s a crew chief with a great resume in Childers sitting on his couch right now.
Keselowski and Childers would make a solid team, because Keselowski’s personality is similar to Harvick’s in a lot of ways. Childers is a shy, reserved guy, and that did not mesh well with Haley because he’s the exact same way. Opposites attract, and that seems to be true when it comes to driver-crew chief relations as well. Keselowski is outspoken, just like Harvick. Many said before he went into Cup team ownership that he could do TV broadcasting after his driving career, just like Harvick is doing now. His personality would probably work well with Childers.
If Keselowski and Bullins do part ways, Childers should be the first person RFK calls. And that change should happen sooner than later. As things currently stand, Keselowski’s season is salvageable. He is 83 points below the playoff cut line, which is possible to overcome with 16 races still remaining. Or the change could give the team the spark it needs to go out and win a race to make the playoffs.
Of all the possible landing spots Childers could go next, on top of the No. 6 pit box is the one that makes the most sense. Who knows? With Childers on board, maybe Keselowski could have a resurgence and click off a nine-win season in a few years at age 44, just like Harvick did.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.