It's Official: Brad Keselowski is 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series Champion

November 21, 2010 , Homestead, Fla. -  It’s official. Brad Keselowski has taken Dodge and Penske Racing to the pinnacle of the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Keselowski was officially crowned the 2010 Nationwide champion following Saturday’s 300-mile season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It’s the first title in the division for Dodge and seventh overall in the three NASCAR national series. For Penske Racing, it’s the first NASCAR title in the team’s history.

“It's been a long ride to get here,” Keselowski said. “It’s been a good ride, a lot of fun. It's pretty amazing. To not having a job in this sport just a few years back and thinking that I’d have to get a real job to being out here and winning the championship, it’s amazing. Hopefully, we can carry this success to the Cup side."

Keselowski clinched the title two races ago at Texas, but NASCAR delays all championship celebrations until the final race weekend of the season.

“It feels really good,” he said. “Obviously, for us, that meant we could come here and just take a gamble to win, and we did that. We took a pretty large gamble to win towards the end. It didn't quite pay off, but it felt good that we knew at the end of the day, we didn't leave anything on the table. For that, I'm very proud.

“Throughout the year, I think if you look at the way we've raced, we haven't raced in a championship mode for the most part. We've raced in a let's go for win mode. We took gambles at tracks like Atlanta and so forth. Those were gambles to win the race. We probably lost some spots because of that, but we're all about doing what we can to win races. We kept that up and got even more aggressive with it here tonight.”

Keselowski finished third in the No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Charger for his 26th top-five of the 35-race season, a Nationwide Series record for top fives. He visited victory lane six times and had only six finishes outside the top 10. He completed every lap during the season except one.

“It’s amazing to think that we’ve raced so many times here and won races in open wheel, but to come back here and this be the site for the championship is unbelievable,” said car owner Roger Penske. “When you think just a year ago, when we decided to put this team together and Paul (Wolfe, crew chief) and Brad agreed to come on board, we said let’s build something from the ground, a whole new team. That’s what’s we’ve done this year. When you think about what Dodge went through, bankruptcy, and said ‘stay with us, don’t leave us,’ and today you see Detroit and what’s happened. We’re so proud of representing that mark through the season. Seven wins in this series and a number of poles. Of course for Brad, a Michigan guy, I think that we brought this whole thing back to Michigan. That’s pretty important to us and the state. For me, it’s a real thrill. This goes down as something that I’ve tried so hard with on the Cup side and certainly this will be a preamble to what’s going to come in the future.”