Kickin' It With Brad Keselowski

"A lot of fans think I'm younger than I am. It doesn't bother me, but it's kind of weird. " Todd Warshaw/Getty Images

Brad Keselowski has agreed to do a diary with SI.com this season. In his first edition, the new full-time Cup driver details the tough decision to move from his longtime home with Hendrick-supported equipment to Roger Penske. He also details what teams need to do to close the gap on his former employer, breaks down the Super Bowl, and gives us an inside tip on the coolest car coming out on the market this fall.

Last season, you chose to leave the most successful team in the sport (Hendrick Motorsports) for an opportunity at Penske Racing. Why make the switch?

Well, there were a lot of reasons. I can tell you it has been the hardest decision of my life to make. I'm not married. I haven't had kids. I haven't had any of those hard issues to tackle yet, but it was an incredibly challenging decision for me. I spent a year making it.

I had the option to go to Penske in July 2008, but it wasn't the right time. At that time, I felt like I had a pretty good home with JR Motorsports and with the HMS guys. But things change, people change, plans change. The catalyst for my change was obviously Mark [Martin] winning Phoenix. Mark won there in April, and then he wanted to come back [full-time in 2011]. He wanted to keep doing this.

So, I was left with an uncertain timetable of where my career was going to go. At that moment, I didn't know I was going to win Talladega the next week [in the Cup Series] ... but that just happened to be the next race. So we went to Talladega and I won the race [in James Finch's No. 09 car]. All of a sudden, not only do I not know what my future holds at HMS, but I'm even more of a hotter commodity around the garage area.

I gained a lot of confidence from that win, and that moment I knew I could do this. I felt that there were sponsors that wanted me, teams that wanted me enough where I had some hard decisions to make.

Was it really impressive to you that Penske kept coming around -- even after you said no the first time?

Of course. Anytime you feel wanted, it makes you think about something twice and say, "Huh. This must be really serious." And Mr. Penske did a great job of making me feel wanted. When Roger Penske wants to talk to you about being a part of his team, you don't blow him off. That carried a lot of weight in the decision.

But I still gave Hendrick Motorsports every fair opportunity I could to put something together. That took some time, but it became apparent it just wasn't going to work out. The options that were available just didn't stand out to me.

That was hard to go through that time period, trying to decide what to do. On the Cup side, every team I was looking at was really in the same situation. They were all certainly running behind the Hendrick cars. All options were going to go through some sort of transition in the offseason; so I really valued all the Cup teams, the ones that were open, rather equally. And I probably talked to at least six teams. Almost every car owner. It's kind of funny how that worked out ...

Meanwhile, Mr. Penske let it be known he was still very interested. But I made it clear to him, if things didn't work out at Hendrick I was going to go somewhere that had a Nationwide program.

So it was the chance to run Nationwide [NASCAR's equivalent to AAA baseball] full-time that made the difference for you?

Right. It was really, really important for me for a lot of different reasons. Penske didn't have a program for me at the time; he had Justin [Allgaier]'s program, which he was committed in running Justin in this year -- and that was it. So, about the same time it became evident HMS wasn't going to be able to put anything together, it also became evident through Mr. Penske that he could run a second Nationwide team. About that time period, Discount Tire called up without my knowledge and said, 'Hey, we hear you're talking to Brad. We want to sponsor him and be part of his Nationwide deal next year wherever he goes. Are you going to hire him?'

So, that drove that deal, helped put it together. And that made me feel good, made me feel like I was wanted by more than just Mr. Penske. I was wanted by the sponsors, too.

So when I made the decision to go to Penske, to drive their cars, which I guess would have been right after Michigan, I literally flew right down to headquarters and met all their people the next day. And they were excited. So...

Why do you want to run both series so badly?

Well to me, it's important for the future of the company, from the standpoint of adding a bigger sponsor pool they can work with. It just adds depth in so many areas, from money to personnel. It just adds so much depth to the company.

There's also my end of it, too, which is extra track time and being able to have a shot at giving Mr. Penske his first NASCAR championship. Which, realistically, your shot at doing that on the Nationwide side is much bigger than on the Cup side. That would mean a lot to me, and I feel like I do have that opportunity here.

You said last fall, "Because we're different, we're going to have our natural differences. We're going to have to work together, and it can't be on one end. It can't be where I change and adapt to them, and it can't be where they adapt to me. We have to be in the middle and work together that way." Explain that to the average fan, and tell us where you are on that "road to compromise?"

It has definitely been a two-way street. When I first met with Mr. Penske and told him I wanted to drive the Nationwide car, his reaction was pretty much "no way." He was not interested in it. And over time, he saw how important it was to me, and realized this was something that needed to be pursued if I was going to be part of the team. As I was becoming more successful, I think he started to see the value of it and see why it was important.

There's some things he does -- whether structuring the company or wearing black slacks with dress shirts every day -- that I'm not accustomed to, but it's all about buying into the team aspect. Each of these things are important to each of us, and we both view it as a pattern to our previous successes.

Did Roger hire the 100 people you asked him to hire last fall?

[Laughs] You know, I should have never put a number on it. That was not the most intelligent thing I've ever done. But he's hired a lot of people. If I had to guess, I'd say 30-40, which is a good start. And that's not even the engine side. I'm not sure how many people have been added on the engine side. It might be more than 40. It might be in the 50s. And that's part of compromise, too. If I'd said 50, then he might have only brought in 25. So I guess there's a little bit of car salesman in me, but our group is very solid and I'm happy where we are.