Brad Keselowski building argument he's greatest plate driver ever
If you believe the old sports adage about you are what your record says you are, then Brad Keselowski is not only the best restrictor-plate racer in NASCAR today, but he’s the very best of all-time.
That’s a bold and very unpopular view at Talladega Superspeedway, where the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will race in Sunday’s Hellman’s 500, the third and final race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Round of 12.
Talladega is Earnhardt country, a track where the late Dale Earnhardt and his son, Dale Jr., have amassed impressive records, as has Jeff Gordon.
You can argue how to measure greatness — total number of wins, laps led, top fives and so on — but if you go strictly by winning percentage at restrictor-plate tracks, Keselowski beats even the greats.
In 30 career restrictor-plate races, Keselowski has five victories, a winning percentage of .167.
Earnhardt Jr.’s plate-track win percentage is .149, with 10 victories in 67 starts.
Prior to his death in the 2001 Daytona 500, Earnhardt posted 13 victories in 90 starts, meaning he won 14.4 percent of his plate races.
Jeff Gordon has 12 plate-track victories in 92 starts, a winning percentage of .130.
And Keselowski’s winning percentage beats them all.
This year, Keselowski won the spring Talladega race and the July race at Daytona International Speedway.
In 2014 at Talladega, he won a Chase elimination race to advance to the Round of 8, something he will try to do again on Sunday, where anything less than a victory might knock him out of the Chase.
“I like Talladega. Talladega has been good to me and I am going to drive my butt off,” Keselowski said after crashing out at Kansas Speedway last week.
“And at the end of the day, I have faith that if it is meant to be it is meant to be.”
If somehow Keselowski comes up big on Sunday at Talladega and wins yet again, his already strong case for being the greatest plate racer of all-time will become that much stronger.
