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Within the passing of one year, 24-year-old Nationwide Series driver Brad Keselowski had perhaps the lowest and the highest points in his career occur at the same place. In 2007, Keselowski started last in a 43-car field at Nashville Superspeedway in Tennessee. He completed only 23 of 225 laps and finished 40th.

"It was about as bad at it gets," Keselowski remembers. "We brought a road course car here and broke down about five times. I was afraid I was going to knock the wall down and get myself hurt. It was one of those times when I was asking myself, 'What am I doing?'"

After that race, what he wasn't doing was working in NASCAR. The team he was with folded up after that outing, and Keselowski was out of a ride.

That all must have seemed but a distant memory for him one week ago after Keselowski returned to Nashville and won this year's Federated Auto Parts 300 to pick up his first career victory in his 49th career Nationwide Series start.

Keselowski became the first first-time winner in stock-car racing's No. 2 series with that victory, taking a giant step forward toward realizing the potential he showed in working his way into this current job as driver of the No. 88 Chevrolets owned by JR Motorsports.

"It's not like I came into the sport winning," Keselowski said of his road to that first win. "I feel like I've paid some dues. I did some stuff with some lower-level teams and when you're doing that and breaking down or blowing up every week you're questioning yourself.

"Then you catch a break like I did and get to drive for somebody like Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. that validates and vindicates you. I have a team that keeps getting better every week and I keep getting better with it. I felt like it was just a matter of time."

Earnhardt Jr. hired Keselowski 20 races into the 2007 season, putting him in the car in which Shane Huffman had started the year. JR Motorsports team had been through rough patches, too, until Keselowski came on board. But Keselowski finished 14th in his first outing at Chicagoland and had six top-10 finishes the rest of the way.

When Earnhardt Jr. joined Hendrick Motorsports after last season, that deal also included co-operation between the Hendrick operation and the JR Motorsports team that Earnhardt Jr. owned. Keselowski certainly understands what opportunities that opened for him in the No. 88.

"When you feel like you have the equipment to win with, you forget about the rest - or at least I do," he said. "You forget about who you're competing against, and you know if you run the car right you can win."

With crew chief Tony Eury Sr. providing a veteran's seasoning to Keselowski's youth, talent and enthusiasm, the team already had six top-10 finishes - and a couple of brushes with victory - before the win at Nashville.

Going into this week's race at Kentucky Speedway, Keselowski is fifth in the Nationwide standings and just 26 points behind second-place Carl Edwards. He trails championship leader Clint Bowyer by 192 points.

The Nashville win and the solid runs in several other races this year has whet the young driver's appetite for success.

"We've had a shot at winning a couple of times but we just hadn't caught any breaks," he said. "There were some races where we were fast enough to win but we just didn't execute, we made mistakes. Then there were races where we haven't been fast enough but ran a perfect race. (At Nashville) we just made zero mistakes and that's what is going to take to win."[[In-content Ad]]

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