Maybe the coolest thing about life -- and the dreams that inevitably come with being a creative, talented individual -- is that flexibility and adaptability are infinite qualities.

It doesn't matter what your dream is today. If you have enough ability, desire and drive, you can rethink your dream -- and make it happen -- tomorrow.

“

The biggest trick I've figured out is surrounding yourself with good people that can help you out and make your job easier.

”

-- BRAD KESELOWSKI

That's the scenario that fits Penske Racing's lead duo in the Nationwide Series, a pair of newcomers to the program at the beginning of 2010, driver Brad Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe.

Team owner Roger Penske and his managers obviously saw enough they liked in the pair to hire them. It's maybe even possible they saw the similarities in the two men's backgrounds that led them to believe they could click.

But there's no question what Wolfe, Keselowski and their team have achieved a third of the way through the Nationwide schedule, just as it hits its toughest stretch, is nearly inconceivable.

After 13 races Keselowski leads the league in three significant categories: Top-five finishes (10), top 10s (12) and the most implausible of all, he's the only series driver to have completed every lap run this season, 2,549 of them. And he's won two poles and three races besides.

And the biggest deal is they've got a 277-point lead over their next full-time opponent, 2007 series champion Carl Edwards.

"We've definitely put in a lot of effort and we're getting rewarded for that, I guess," Wolfe said this week. "It's definitely exciting stuff, and we've accomplished a lot."

Now, there's a long way to go in this 2010 Nationwide Series schedule -- 22 races to be exact. And that's a lot of time for a lot of uh, shall we say, "stuff" to happen.

But right now the dream is reality for Wolfe and Keselowski. And a fascinating cloud of fantasy it is for two young men -- Wolfe, 33, an upstate New York native and Keselowski, 26, a Michigan native -- whose hardscrabble beginnings in racing are so similar it's almost eerie.

They both grew up in racing families and evolved in the sport building their own equipment by necessity and making the best of it. Wolfe thought his dream was realized when he moved to North Carolina in 1996 and went to work at Joe Gibbs Racing. But that was just another brick in the wall.

He raced several years in Busch North in family-run cars he and his dad built themselves, and while the results were promising and the career-building lessons priceless, Wolfe knew the dream needed to be rewritten. (Continued)