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ROCHESTER HILLS — NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., has signed Brad Keselowski to drive one of his own race cars starting this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway.

The three-race deal between Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports and the 23-year-old Rochester Hills native was announced Tuesday afternoon in Mooresville, N.C.

“I’ve watched Brad for a while, and he’s shown a lot of promise in the few Busch races he’s run,” Earnhardt Jr. said on his race shop’s Web site.

Earnhardt, who created controversy by recently announcing he would leave a race shop created by his late father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., to drive next year for rival Rick Hendrick Motorsports, also runs a race organization of his own called JR Motorsports. Earnhardt had released rookie Shane Huffman from driving his No. 88 Navy-sponsored Chevrolet in NASCAR’s second-echelon Busch series last week, and took the wheel himself for one race. Earnhardt vowed he would have a new driver soon, and mentioned Keselowski .

“Kez” was available because his rookie campaign in the Busch series ended two weeks ago. The team he had driven for folded.

Keselowski made a splash two weeks ago in Memphis during a one-time drive in a top-level NASCAR Craftsman truck series. He took a last-minute offer to replace suspended driver, Ted Musgrave, and promptly put the race truck on the poll as the fastest qualifier. He was leading the race near the end when Travis Kvapil, driving for Livonia’s Jack Roush, spun him out and stole the victory.

Keselowski handled the incident with a veteran’s calm, making no inflammatory statements after the race while Kvapil told interviewers the bump was an accident. However, in an interview back home last week with WDFN radio’s NASCAR radio talk show host Rob Pascoe, Keselowski said he also learned a valuable lesson about who he could and couldn’t trust on the race track.

Keselowski comes from a racing family. His father Bob Keselowski was an ARCA champion. His brother Brian, 26, won the ARCA race last weekend at Berlin Raceway by Grand Rapids. The family also has fielded entries in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck series.