Brad Keselowski has revealed that a request to NASCAR regarding Ryan Blaney once landed him in some serious hot water with the stock car racing series.
Blaney is a Cup Series champion and 18-time race winner these days, but on his way to NASCAR stardom, he drove for Brad Keselowski Racing in the Truck Series full-time in 2013 and 2014.
Keselowski himself became Cup Series champion in 2012, and following that season, he headed to Phoenix for a testing session, bringing Blaney along with him so that he could learn and get better at the track.
However, by the end of the test, Keselowski and his team were in NASCAR's bad books, as revealed by the RFK Racing driver and co-owner on an episode of the Dale Jr. Download podcast this week.
Ryan Blaney request got Brad Keselowski in trouble
“2012, right after I won the championship, we had a test at Phoenix, and Blaney was driving my truck at the time, and Blaney comes with me,” Keselowski explained.
“And keep in mind, he’s not running Cup. I remember taking him, like, ‘Come with me man, you need to get good at this track, this is an important track for you’, but he had to be 18, maybe 19, at the time.
“He spent two days in the garage area, in the stands, watching and learning the track. I don't know, he's just been really good there ever since. I would say it's his best track by a pretty long way.”
Keselowski continued: “My favourite part of that story of taking him to that Phoenix test, we get to the end of the second day. The end of the second day is like silly time. We've ran through this list of things, we're going to try on the car, and we have more data than we know what to do with. We're down to like our worst ideas, and you're just like, I don't know what to do. Let's throw this at it. Blaney's sitting there, we’re like, ‘Hey Blaney, you want to run a few laps?’
“He's like Ricky Bobby [on] Talladega Nights, ‘I want to go fast’, and you’re like alright, let’s go ask NASCAR, because NASCAR had to approve.
"Well, we thought it would be pretty easy, and they were so pissed at us. ‘What do you mean you want Ryan Blaney driving? He’s not a Cup driver. Only Cup drivers could drive these cars. You guys know that, you shouldn’t even ask us that."
NASCAR 'so mad'
Keselowski continued, revealing that NASCAR was angry and held a grudge
“They were so mad at us [that] four months later, we got a penalty at Texas, and in the penalty process, they brought it up," he stated.
"You guys are always doing stuff you shouldn't be doing, like when you asked about putting Ryan Blaney in the car at the test at Phoenix.
“We were like, ‘What does that have to do with anything?’. I don’t even know if Ryan knows that story.”
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