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Last week it was announced that Austin Cindric would take over the helm of Team Penske\u2019s iconic No. 2 Ford Mustang in NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series. The team simultaneously announced that current No. 2 driver, Brad Keselowski, the 2012 Cup Series champion, would be leaving the team at the close of this season.<\/p>\n
Keselowski\u2019s plans were announced on July 20th, just a week after Team Penske\u2019s announcement. The Rochester Hills, Michigan-born racer is joining Roush Fenway Racing as a full-time driver and minority owner of the organization, starting in 2022. Keselowski will helm the No. 6 Ford Mustang for Roush Fenway and will take an increasing stake in the company, joining Roush Industries, Jack Roush and the Fenway Group. \u201cThis agreement,\u201d said Steve Newmark, president of Roush Fenway Racing, \u201cis a little bit different than the normal arrangements we\u2019ve entered into in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe transaction has three pieces: the first is that Brad will be behind the wheel of the No. 6 car starting in 2022 and will pilot that vehicle for years to come,\u201d Newmark explained. As the second partition, \u201cHe will be purchasing a minority ownership stake in the company and that triumvirate will lead us from a strategic perspective for years to come. Brad will also be assuming a leadership mantle at our organization. Even while he\u2019s driving, he will be on the competition committee, and then, once his driving career runs its course, he will shift over into an even greater role leading our competition side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our next step in the evolution of our team and we\u2019re extremely confident this will allow us to excel for years to come.\u201d Newmark noted the culmination of this agreement wasn\u2019t a quick decision and has been brewing over the past few months. \u201cBrad and I have been friends over the years in the garage and we\u2019ve regularly gotten together a couple times a year, just to talk about the state of the sport, talk about the direction, whether it\u2019s the charter system, stage racing and, particularly in my prior role with the team owner council, I relied quite a bit on Brad for input from the driver side.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Keselowski, notably one of the more cerebral members of the NASCAR Cup Series community, is intending to bring home a title this year, his final one with Roger Penske\u2019s team, before assuming both his driving and managerial career with Roush Fenway Racing. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible opportunity and I think, digging deeper into that, there\u2019s probably a lot of people wondering what I saw here that made it great. The ability to have a long-term driving contract was something I valued,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to stay at one place and be there for a long time, and hopefully for the rest of my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that\u2019s the intent and goal, and that position was offered to me. The second condition – which was really important to me – was to be in a leadership role. We\u2019re forming a competition committee that I\u2019m proud to be a part of leading, so that will come together and I think will allow me the freedom to express myself creatively and to lead the company and team to be the best it can be. That was really critical to me, to be able to have more control over my overall destiny with respect to matters competition-related. The third thing was, of course, the ownership position. It\u2019s quite a unique opportunity that really excites me. It was important to me long-term; it represents growth for me personally and professionally, which is very important, and it creates a deeper tie-in to really the fourth point, which is to have a role in this sport when I\u2019m done driving,\u201d Keselowski confirmed.<\/p>\n
Keselowski cited Tony Stewart\u2019s decision to form Stewart-Haas Racing and take an ownership stake in that team as his model for this change. \u201cI think he was probably in a similar position when he joined\u201d Gene Haas\u2019 operation. \u201cIn fact, I was looking through the stats and he (Stewart) had the same amount of wins (35) and was the same age (37) when he moved over to Haas\u2019 team. That was probably more by coincidence than choice, but that clearly shows you can be successful with this type of arrangement. There\u2019s certainly quite a precedent there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The driver does believe, with the new NextGen car and engine program on tap, \u201cThere should be a significant reset with the technology, a significant reset for the way the processes flow and some of those things that we would need to overcome, so I think kind of taking that down the course of NASCAR leadership and some of the things they have going on, a lot of confidence in where the sport is heading\u2026 I think we\u2019re on a big upswing and I kind of feel like I\u2019m buying into a stock as it\u2019s about to go up, with looking at the landscape.\u201d He also expressed supreme confidence in the front office at Roush Fenway, in particular their ability to bring blue-chip partners into the organization.<\/p>\n
Jack Roush, whose lifetime dedication to the sport of racing can\u2019t be denied noted, \u201cBrad has distinguished himself by taking on more things than he needed, to be successful as a driver and participate in NASCAR. His truck team,\u201d Roush said, \u201cwas a big challenge, but he wanted to do that, apparently in order to get his legs under a team operation, and I can\u2019t say more about how impressed I am with his space age manufacturing of aerospace components.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor him to be willing to think about how he wants to spend his money and enjoy his time off after he stops driving, to have him think about what he could do by participating at the next level in the management of a team, and to enjoy bringing along young people to realize their dreams and to start their careers and to have things develop so that they can have security for their families and all – he\u2019s willing to be a participant and to make his mark in that, as well. Those interests and those motivations fall in line with what I\u2019d hoped for all my drivers, and I think it marks a path for other drivers and other owners, to think about their legacy plans as the years advance. You can\u2019t do anything about the advancement of years, you\u2019ve just got to plan to make the most of it,\u201d Roush noted.<\/p>\n
Financial terms of the triumvirate\u2019s agreement were not disclosed, but Newmark did state that Keselowski was buying a minority percentage of the team, \u201cand the hope and expectation is that may grow over the years as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
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