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Sprint Cup
CUP: Keselowski A Profile In Courage
Brad Keselowski won on a broken ankle Sunday...
Brad Keselowski (Left) is congratulated by teammate Kurt Busch (Right)following his win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Good Sam RV Insurance 500 at Pocono Raceway. (Photo: Getty Images)
Playing with pain is something athletes do, and throughout the annals of sports history, there have been moments of spectacular triumph that came wrapped in crushing pain.
• Wills Reed, barely able to walk, willing the New York Knicks to a seventh-game victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in 1970.
• Kirk Gibson, limping to the plate to hit a game-winning, ninth-inning home run over the Oakland A’s in the 1988 World Series.
• Emmitt Smith playing with a separated shoulder to run over the New York Giants and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an NFC East title in 1994.
• Keri Strug, running on torn ligaments in her left ankle landing a twisting Yurchenko to lead the U.S. Women’s gymnastics team to its first gold medal in the 1996 Olympics.
And, now, add the name of Brad Keselowski to that list.
Sunday at Pocono Raceway, Keselowski did something that he’d only done twice in 73 prior attempts: Win a NASCAR Sprint Cup race. And he did it with one broken ankle, one cut ankle, myriad bruises and bangs, and a right hand that was cut and blistered.
Keselowski’s Penske Racing Dodge had a mechanical failure Wednesday morning at Road Atlanta, where he hit a concrete wall head on at 100 miles per hour. The impact broke his left ankle and left it grotesquely swollen and him bruised and sore all over his body.
And yet he refused to get out of his car — the phrase he used over and over again was “Nobody’s going to drive my damn car” — and somehow went out and won at Pocono, a track where the left foot is busy all race long shifting and braking.
Unbelievable.
According to Keselowski, though, it all went according to plan.
“I came here to win,” he said after his improbable victory. “When you let the pain get into your head that far that you don't believe you can win anymore, you'll never win. And I woke up this morning feeling like we could win the race. ... If you don't feel that way, you're never going to win at anything you do.”
Crew chief Paul Wolfe was understandably impressed with his driver.
“Just for Brad to be able to be in the car this weekend I thought was an accomplishment after seeing how tore up he was after that wreck and what he had to go through,” said Wolfe.
The winning crew chief hinted, though, that this race exceeded his expectations.
“Did I feel like we were going to come out here and win with the condition Brad was in? I thought we could put ourselves into position, but really proud of what he was able to do there,” he said. “And I saw how tired he was and whatnot after the first half of the race. But we're racers, and we want to win racing. We work really hard. And I think that's what we showed today.”
Indeed they did.
Keselowski said he never thought otherwise.
“I knew I was getting in the car,” he said of the hours after his crash. “I just wasn't sure how I was going to convince Paul and Roger (Penske) that I was doing it. Thankfully the doctors handled that part for me. And I'm glad of that. But it just all worked out.”
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
• Wills Reed, barely able to walk, willing the New York Knicks to a seventh-game victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in 1970.
• Kirk Gibson, limping to the plate to hit a game-winning, ninth-inning home run over the Oakland A’s in the 1988 World Series.
• Emmitt Smith playing with a separated shoulder to run over the New York Giants and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an NFC East title in 1994.
• Keri Strug, running on torn ligaments in her left ankle landing a twisting Yurchenko to lead the U.S. Women’s gymnastics team to its first gold medal in the 1996 Olympics.
And, now, add the name of Brad Keselowski to that list.
Sunday at Pocono Raceway, Keselowski did something that he’d only done twice in 73 prior attempts: Win a NASCAR Sprint Cup race. And he did it with one broken ankle, one cut ankle, myriad bruises and bangs, and a right hand that was cut and blistered.
Keselowski’s Penske Racing Dodge had a mechanical failure Wednesday morning at Road Atlanta, where he hit a concrete wall head on at 100 miles per hour. The impact broke his left ankle and left it grotesquely swollen and him bruised and sore all over his body.
And yet he refused to get out of his car — the phrase he used over and over again was “Nobody’s going to drive my damn car” — and somehow went out and won at Pocono, a track where the left foot is busy all race long shifting and braking.
Unbelievable.
According to Keselowski, though, it all went according to plan.
“I came here to win,” he said after his improbable victory. “When you let the pain get into your head that far that you don't believe you can win anymore, you'll never win. And I woke up this morning feeling like we could win the race. ... If you don't feel that way, you're never going to win at anything you do.”
Crew chief Paul Wolfe was understandably impressed with his driver.
“Just for Brad to be able to be in the car this weekend I thought was an accomplishment after seeing how tore up he was after that wreck and what he had to go through,” said Wolfe.
The winning crew chief hinted, though, that this race exceeded his expectations.
“Did I feel like we were going to come out here and win with the condition Brad was in? I thought we could put ourselves into position, but really proud of what he was able to do there,” he said. “And I saw how tired he was and whatnot after the first half of the race. But we're racers, and we want to win racing. We work really hard. And I think that's what we showed today.”
Indeed they did.
Keselowski said he never thought otherwise.
“I knew I was getting in the car,” he said of the hours after his crash. “I just wasn't sure how I was going to convince Paul and Roger (Penske) that I was doing it. Thankfully the doctors handled that part for me. And I'm glad of that. But it just all worked out.”
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
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