Brad Keselowski’s season has felt like a rollercoaster built with a flat tire. Once buried as low as 32nd in the standings, he rallied through the summer with a string of solid efforts, but still, no race win to punch his playoff ticket. And in NASCAR, especially today, consistent decent finishes just don’t cut it, the win is everything. At Michigan, Keselowski admitted he had a top-two or three car, only to see it fall short due to a pit-lane speeding penalty and some tougher luck.

He said, “I’m disappointed I didn’t get it done. … We were faster on the day,” but still ended up 10th. That finish was bittersweet, fast but fruitless. And in Iowa, he led 68 laps, his best stretch in weeks, but a mix of poor luck and how the cautions played out left him third.

RFK entered the regular-season finale at Daytona needing a win, only one of the trio (Keselowski, Chris Buescher, or Ryan Preece) could make it in. Keselowski sat 22nd in the playoff standings, locked in win-or-go-home territory. Buescher and Preece booked consistent runs and were just at the edge of the qualification line, but still reliant on victory or teammate help. In short, the fate of the season came down to one race, and they needed to nail it.

The emotional weight of falling short hit hard. RFK’s playoff heartbreak is now familiar territory. Keselowski started the 2025 season off incredibly slow but made great strides throughout the summer. He, too, missed the playoffs after he was unable to stage a late-race charge.

For Keselowski, it marks twice in his four seasons as an owner-driver that he’s missed the postseason. This season was emotionally taxing, too. At Richmond Raceway, Keselowski spoke openly about how much a playoff berth meant to him, acknowledging the pressure and the need for a win to prove that RFK Racing was still relevant. It’s not only Keselowski but even Kevin Harvick is disappointed with his performance.

Time for RFK to shake things up

Recently on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour Podcast, he did not mince his words about Keselowski’s role at RFK Racing. Harvick laid it out plain, “And and Brad is in my eyes is supposed to be the star of the team, right? That’s the that’s the team that’s supposed to be the leader now over the last six weeks. They’ve definitely run better climbed up the point standings but haven’t won. You know always seems to be something that happens throughout the day that keeps them from being in position to to win, so I think it’s a you know it’s a tough conversation.”

Harvick’s view reflects the expectations on Brad Keselowski’s No. 6 car at RFK Racing, especially since Keselowski joined the team in 2022 as both a driver and co-owner. Keselowski brought championship pedigree (2012 Cup Series champion with Penske) and was billed as the cornerstone for RFK’s revival. While the team has shown marked improvement in 2025, Keselowski climbed inside the top 12 in points during the summer stretch, his winless streak is glaring.

He hasn’t won a Cup race since April 2021 at Talladega, despite multiple close calls. For instance, in 2023 and 2024, Keselowski led laps at Daytona, Kansas, and Darlington only to lose races due to crashes, late cautions, or pit mistakes. Harvick is zeroing in on that almost there pattern, consistent speed but lacking the execution to seal the deal.

Harvick kept the pressure on, stressing the need for big decisions, “I think it’s that time of the year where you have to start deciding. Are you going to make changes on your team to be able to put yourself in a position to win? Have they gotten enough better? Can they maintain what they’ve done the last six weeks for the end of the year to get themselves back to Victory lane to know that they’re that they’re okay? Or do they need to go hunt for engineers crew chief, who whatever they they think that is. This is the time of year that you have to do that because all the good people, their contracts are up. If they’re up, they’re up.”

Harvick’s point about timing is key. The summer months are traditionally when teams evaluate crew chiefs, engineers, and pit crew performance ahead of contract cycles. For RFK, this is especially relevant because Keselowski’s crew chief Matt McCall has been under scrutiny since joining from Chip Ganassi Racing in 2022. While McCall helped stabilize the program, the team’s inability to close out races has put his strategy calls and pit execution under the microscope.

Historically, midsummer Silly Season shifts, like Joe Gibbs Racing swapping crew chiefs or Hendrick luring top engineers, have reshaped championship trajectories. For example, when Martin Truex Jr. and Cole Pearn paired up at Furniture Row Racing in 2015, the team went from mid-pack to championship-winning. Harvick’s essentially warning that if RFK doesn’t make a bold personnel move now, they risk plateauing behind the sport’s elite.

Harvick wrapped his take by highlighting the gap in leadership, “You know starting in September usually and I think that that’s the time of the year that you have to start making changes. And you know, I think that Ryan Preece did a great job this year. I don’t think anybody expected the improvement that they saw, but they’re real contenders and ain’t going to be better next year. Having a year under their belt a determined hungry but when you look at that six car it’s supposed to be the anchor on the performance side and they just they. They have not been and you know I think that you got to have a you got to have somebody be the anchor of the team to to carry it along and it just hasn’t been that way for the six.”

Here Harvick contrasts Keselowski’s struggles with Ryan Preece’s unexpected overperformance. Preece, driving for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) until the 2024 season before finding new footing, has surprised observers with consistent top-15s and occasional flashes of speed that outpaced expectations.The comparison underlines Keselowski’s predicament, he’s supposed to be RFK’s anchor, the driver whose results and leadership elevate the organization, much like Joey Logano at Penske or Denny Hamlin at JGR.

Instead, it’s Chris Buescher in the No. 17 who has carried RFK with multiple wins in 2023 and 2024, including dramatic victories at Richmond and Daytona. Buescher’s surge highlights the imbalance: the supposed supporting driver is outperforming the team’s co-owner. Harvick, who spent decades as a team leader at RCR and SHR, knows the importance of a flagship car to steady the program, and his critique stings because Keselowski has yet to fulfill that role since buying into RFK.

Keelan’s Super Late Model debut honors dad’s glory days

NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick will be honored by his son Keelan at his upcoming Super Late Model debut at Kern Raceway via an eye-catching livery. It was announced on Thursday that the ongoing Cup, which has seen the two go head-to-head in eight late model races to date, will make its way back to Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway on October 25 for a landmark race in the youngster’s career.

Not only will this be Keelan’s Super Late Model debut in the CARS Tour West race, which he was heartbreakingly denied earlier this year, but it’ll be taking place at a track renamed in his dad’s honor in 2023, in a car featuring one of Kevin’s throwback liveries. Specifically, Keelan’s No. 62 Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevrolet will be decked out in the iconic white and blue Spears paint job, driven by Kevin during his Winston West Series (now the K&N Pro Series West) and Craftsman Truck Series days. In fact, Kevin won the 1998 West Series title in the eye-catching paint scheme.

This race also marks the return of the Harvick Cup to where it all began, with the father and son duo having raced in a CARS Tour West race at Kern Raceway to start their campaign in May, with Keelan getting the better of his dad that night. But Keelan’s new-look livery won’t be the only throwback of the day at Kern Raceway for hardcore fans, with Kevin set to compete in a separate Super Late Model event in the No. 29 Busch Light.