An identity all his own

On Friday night, assuming he qualifies for the race, Jason Keller will make his 418th career Busch Series start at Lowe's Motor Speedway. It will break the mark held by Tommy Houston.

As NASCAR readies to make a switch to the Nationwide Series and the Busch Series' identity erodes bit by bit, it's understandable that NASCAR wants to tout the achievement of someone like Keller. What we have to hope is that this business won't all get run over by a pace car after Friday's Dollar General 300 is complete.

"There are so many agendas in the Busch Series, I hope that we maintain enough spots for all those agendas and not just become a series with 25 or 30 Cup drivers on a Saturday, and then just a couple of spots just left for everybody else," Keller said. "That's what concerns me.

"I mean, I think the series is great when you have 12 to 14 or so Cup drivers, because they are more recognizable. They are more known to the fans, and that brings notoriety to our series, so I'm all for that. But when you start getting up to the 24, 25, even higher, numbers of Cup drivers in the series, it kind of puts it over to one side and that concerns me a little bit."

Keller is a driver with a different agenda. Like former series champion Randy Lajoie before him, Keller has no real interest in Cup Series racing and the circus that goes along with it. He's far too happy spending Sundays at home with his wife and kids.

But choosing his family has come at the cost of his racing career. And, because he's 37 years old and not the 18- or 19-year-old polished kid that every team is looking for in its development program, he's had to settle for what he can get this year.

"It's tough because I want to be a part of a series week-in and week-out," said Keller, whose made only 16 starts this season. "I mean, I equate it to only playing golf once a month. It's hard to get in a rhythm. It's very tough for me to get in a rhythm over the summer months because I raced for a couple of different teams. I mean, there for 2 months, I had a team for every other week and a different spotter every other week, and some of the small things that go along with that — it's just it's hard to get into a rhythm."