Former NASCAR champ Brad Keselowski says toughest part of road races is remembering he is no longer racing when he goes home
- Brad Keselowski competed in the Texas Grand Prix this weekend, finishing 14th on the road course.
- Keselowski said before the race he is more likely to forget he is not racing when he drives home after road races.
Former NASCAR champion Brad Keselowski has struggled on the track so far this season, but he might struggle even more on the way home after some races.
For just the second time, NASCAR held the Texas Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas outside Austin, Texas. The road course there is different from other NASCAR road courses in that it was designed with Formula One cars in mind.
However, when Insider asked Keselowski about the challenge of this track, he noted all road courses have one thing in common: how it impacts the way he drives a regular car after the race.
"My wife will tell you that she doesn't like when I do the road-course races because I get in the car to drive back, and I drive faster," Keselowski said before the race in Austin. "When you do road-course racing, it feels a little like driving around on the street. If you are on an oval, you are like, 'Nah, it's not at all.' But I get in a car after the road-course races, I forget to slow down .... It is hard for me to remember I am not in the race car."
As for the physical toll a road race has on the body of a NASCAR driver, Keselowski noted that the length of those races in NASCAR alleviates the stress.
"All of the races are hard in their own way," Keselowski said. "Road course races are just challenging in the sense that, obviously, you are loading your body in different directions during the race, and there is more shifting, but generally, they are a little shorter race. Let's say you go to the race in Dallas-Ft. Worth. That's a 500-mile race. That's almost four hours. But then you go to a race like this, and it is a little shorter, like 2.5 or three hours. There is a trade-off. The races are a little tougher, but not as long."
Luckily for Keselowski, he won't have to worry about another road course until mid-June, when NASCAR starts a stretch of four road races in 10 weeks.