- Brad Keselowski was formally granted his release from RFK Racing at Martinsville on Saturday, leaving him free to pursue driving and ownership roles with any team or manufacturer.
- Keselowski said he made “a very serious offer to purchase RFK”; Motorsport.com understands a consortium of investors joined the bid and RFK denied it, and the process to sell his 20 percent stake is now under way.
- The 2012 Cup champion is not ready to retire, calls a revived truck team a “strong chance with no certainty” and says some Cup options could take until February to appear.
A Meeting, a Release and a Stack of Rewritten Note Cards
“Would the topic have been different without the release? Probably. Yes, it would have.” Brad Keselowski answered his own question that way in the media center at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday, and the answer shows how much one meeting changed his day.
The press conference was always on the calendar. He announced it on Tuesday, promising to address several questions about his future “Saturday morning at Martinsville Speedway.” What he said depended on a sit-down with RFK Racing leadership, and that sit-down ended with the formal grant of his impending release from the organization.
“I don’t want to speak for other people,” Keselowski said. “Clearly, I was going to have this press conference regardless. Would the topic have been different without the release? Probably. Yes, it would have, but I’m thankful that this is the topic and that we’re forging a path forward.”
Before he left the media center, Keselowski held up the note cards he had on him. Some of his notes were scratched out and replaced by new talking points.
The new agreement gives him room to move. He and RFK reached a “verbal agreement” on the separation, and the terms let him sign a new deal now. Keselowski said a number of opportunities exist and repeated that he is not ready to retire. The process for him to begin selling his 20 percent stake in the team is under way.
The Offer RFK Turned Down
Keselowski explained the sale by pointing first to an attempt to buy the whole team.
“I would say that I made a very serious offer to purchase RFK,” Keselowski said. “I can’t go into the specifics of what it was.”
He gave no figure and no names. The understanding is that a consortium of investors stood with him and that RFK denied the overtures. Even so, the coming sale of his stake is understood to raise his overall return on his investment in RFK.
That makes his exit a different kind of departure from a driver losing a seat. Keselowski arrived at RFK ahead of the 2022 season. He leaves five seasons later as a seller, having first tried to become the buyer.
Why Investors Want a Piece of the Sport
His answer went on to explain why ownership of a Cup team looks attractive right now.
“There’s a lot of interest in this sport right now, tremendous interest in this sport on the ownership front, and it’s never been hotter,” Keselowski said. He added that the industry did not reach that point the way he would have liked, with the different lawsuits along the way.
His reading of the antitrust case between NASCAR, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports is that its closing in the last 12 months changed how outsiders see NASCAR. He pointed to New York City, where many of the large investment firms sit. In his telling, the settlement that gave all teams permanent charters raised the value of those assets and drew private equity firms toward the sport.
“The sport is now viewed as an asset, an ownership asset that has certainty and has a level of stability and the valuations have dramatically increased along with interest,” Keselowski said. “So that’s not unique to my situation. I think there’s a couple of announcements that are going to come out here in the next few months in a similar vein and the sport’s going to feel the effect of that, I think in a very positive way shortly.”
He admitted the numbers have not always been kind to the series. “NASCAR as a property went through, just to be transparent, went through a downturn here in the last 8-10 years, and it’s having a good moment right now,” he said. He allowed that there is always an unfavorable metric to point to, whether attendance or TV viewership, then pointed at the garage. The team ownership model, he said, “has a level of sustainability it didn’t have before.”
What Bowers Wanted and What Keselowski Wants
The release closes a split that began with a shock. At the end of September, the NASCAR world learned that Keselowski would leave the team he co-owns after the 2026 season, and the announcement of his exit from RFK Racing left the sport asking what comes next for a driver of 42 with a 2012 title and 36 Cup wins.
RFK president Chip Bowers has said the team wanted Keselowski to give up his driving duties and focus on the competition side, while Keselowski wanted to keep driving. Many in the sport had once seen him as the successor to Jack Roush and the future of the organization, and after five seasons together that idea appears to be over.
On Saturday Keselowski laid out what he wants, and the list is wide.
“I want to contend for wins,” he said. “I want to contend for wins as a driver, an owner, an operator, a manager, all the above. I want to be a part of seeing people be successful. I want to be a part of writing the script that is the future of this sport so that it can endure hopefully for decades and generations to come.”
He tied that goal to his own story. “I’ve given a big part of my life to this sport and I have a love for it and it’s fans and everything that makes it go,” he said. “I want to be a part of that lifestyle and that privilege for many years to come.”
That fits the line he gave when the exit was announced, when he said he was not ready to be done racing. His Tuesday statement called the “outpouring of support and interest in my future racing plans” over the past few weeks “truly humbling,” and added: “From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
A Truck Team, a Triple Crown and a February Clock
The Cup Series comes first. Keselowski declined to rank his choices or to say how much clarity he has.
“I would not say option B. I would not say option A,” he said. “I don’t know if I have enough clarity on that. I’m obviously very interested in remaining a part of the Cup Series in a really meaningful way. I have a lot of interest in the Triple Crown. I think we’ll see how it plays out and what the opportunities cement themselves to be and go from there.”
The Triple Crown means adding a Truck Series championship to his Cup and O’Reilly Series titles. For Keselowski that would mean owning a truck team again, specifically the Brad Keselowski Racing operation that closed in 2017. He and his father before him owned teams in the Truck Series.
He put the odds in his own words. “I’d say there’s a strong chance with no certainty,” Keselowski said. “I have all the assets to do a truck team right now and it’s certainly something that interests me, but I’m not ready to commit to anything of that level.”
The timing remains open. Keselowski said he has numerous routes onto the Cup grid next season, and some will not formally appear until as late as February. One route is a return to RFK purely as a driver for any number of races. He said leading a team is something he values, though it is not a condition.
“I would say it does not have to be, no,” Keselowski said. “That’s not like a prerequisite. I certainly don’t want to limit the opportunities to if I don’t own the team or control the different aspects that I wouldn’t do it, but I would say that it is something I do value for sure.”
What changes now is who he can talk to. “Right now they’re kind of on the peripheral and I can now engage in meaningful discussions that I couldn’t before and I think I’ll weigh all those options here very shortly,” he said.
Where 2027 Leaves a 42-Year-Old Champion
RFK has not announced what it will do with the No. 6 Ford that Keselowski vacates, and the team is still searching for a third charter for the No. 60 after the 2026 season. Kaulig Racing shot down the rumors that placed Keselowski with its team. Before Saturday, his driving options for 2027, especially in Cup, were extremely limited.
A release, a stake to sell and a fresh round of conversations change the outlook. Keselowski is 42, holds a 2012 championship and 36 Cup wins, and wants to put money into Cup charters.
Where he lands is still unanswered. The choices run from a Cup entry to a revived truck team that carries his family history to a few races back at the team he is leaving. He said he will weigh the options “very shortly,” and the last of them could take until February to appear.
