Since entering the upper levels of NASCAR racing, Brad Keselowski has become known as one of stock car racing’s bad boys in a sport where fans truly love to hate their villains.
But even the most ardent Brad haters will have to cut him some slack after he released details of his infant daughter’s recent health issues on his blog Wednesday.
When Keselowski won the Xfinity Series race at Kentucky Speedway on July 10, he realized it was his first trip to Victory Lane since his daughter, Scarlett, was born May 19.
“While I was talking to the media, I caught a glimpse of my girlfriend, Paige, holding Scarlett [at the back of the media center],” Keselowski wrote. “From that point forward, I’m fairly certain I gave some terrible answers because I was really struggling to concentrate on the questions I was being asked. I just kind of kept glancing back over at the baby, overcome by a ton of different feelings.”
Less than a month earlier, Keselowski and his girlfriend had been told Scarlett might die after she started having trouble breathing during the Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway on June 14.
Doctors at the track’s medical center told them to monitor Scarlett, but things got worse when they arrived back home in North Carolina.
Scarlett’s condition didn’t improve, and she became less and less interested in eating, so an appointment was made with an ear nose and throat specialist on June 16, and the news was shocking.
“After going through everything, the ENT gave Scarlett a fatal diagnosis,” he wrote. “Eventually, she was going to stop being able to breathe and eat. She wasn’t going to make it. …
“It’s fair to say that those hours were among the worst in my life and Paige’s. As a parent, this was pretty much your worst nightmare. We went into full freak-out mode.”
Second and third opinions eventually led them to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
“She had laryngomalacia, a weakness in the muscles of the throat that’s fairly common in infants, though it’s rarely as severe as Scarlett’s case was,” Keselowski wrote. “They did emergency surgery on her the next day, and it saved her life.”
On June 21, Keselowski’s first Father’s Day, he and his girlfriend took Scarlett home. She was in Victory Lane with her parents at Kentucky on July 10.
“Just being there, holding Scarlett — it was the culmination of one of the most powerful experiences of my entire life,” Keselowski wrote. “I honestly can’t think of anything to compare it to. It felt like its own victory. It really did.”
Let it rain
NASCAR has maintained in recent years that if it rains during one of its road course races, they would bolt on rain tires and windshield wipers and continue.
There have been races in the rain in what is now the Xfinity Series three times, last year at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., and at Montreal in 2008 and 2009. But never in the Sprint Cup Series.
Rain is in the forecast for today’s Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen, N.Y.
Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are among the Cup drivers who say they are ready to race in the wet conditions and that they look forward to it.
But leave it to Larry McReynolds, the former crew chief who is now a commentator for Fox, to rain on their parade.
“To say we are going to race in the rain really is a fallacy,” McReynolds said. “You really can’t race. All you can do is simply hang on and ride around. We’ve seen this before and it just doesn’t work.
“These cars are too heavy. The power-to-weight ratio is simply way too great. I know we are the only series that doesn’t race in the rain, and there’s a simple reason for that. These cars aren’t designed or built to do that.”