CONCORD, N.C. Brad Keselowski is the winningest active NASCAR Cup Series driver at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, but Keselowski has had a frustrating beginning to the season.

Through nine races, Keselowski, who has won six times at Talladega, is 31^st in the standings.

Still, Keselowski carries confidence to the 2.66-mile superspeedway.

I still think Talladega is one of those race tracks where anybody can win. Next Gen has been a little bit fickle at Talladega in the way that it values different things than the car before did. It seems to really value the last pit stop and executing that at a very high level and then the fuel saving stuff, which I think is gonna be the word everybody hates after this weekend, Keselowski said Wednesday. So, its different. Its a different type of racing than what Talladega was four or five years ago before the Next Gen car, but I think thats part of what makes Talladega special is just how the racing there has evolved at least a half dozen times since Ive been in Cup and its different eras of racing that values different things.

I appreciate that. There are certainly types that you like more than others of racing there, but I do think that its a place where I think of the 39 entries, 33 of them have a realistic shot of winning.

While Keselowski has struggled for results this season, his RFK Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece have shown more consistency.

Yeah, theres definitely a lot of scratching and clawing. Our company went through a lot of changes. My team went through a lot of changes and we havent recognized the step forward, Keselowski explained. Hopefully soon well recognize the two steps forward with all the changes we made, but we definitely took a step backwards in the process. I feel like that can strike at any moment and we just need to trust our process.

Were developing a lot of people and theyre not all clicking together yet, but theres a lot of signs that say they can and should, whether if thats on pit road or with the team and the mechanics and engineers. All of those pieces have to click to have a great race and to win on any given weekend, and we havent experienced that yet, but we see these glimpses of being able to get there. I feel like Darlington was our best race so far this year and we had a shot to win that race and we kind of lost it on pit road, but it showed a lot of potential for us.

I felt like we had a couple other races this year where weve had a lot of potential and we havent recognized it. Daytona was one. We were running up front in the stages and had some issues again on pit road that put us behind and ended up getting caught up in wrecks, so we have to work to clean that up, and certainly there are things I can do better too, but I think that can click at any moment.

Keselowski talked about a drivers mindset heading to Talladega, where there is high probability the driver could be collected in one of the big crashes that are often seen in superspeedway racing.

I think, first off, when you know thats probably a reality, you have to, one, get over yourself and not allow your own ego to put you in a place where you get your feelings hurt, he said. My ultimate feeling on plate races is I pretty much accept the fact that were gonna crash out of half of them. Statistically, that seems pretty accurate and my goal is the ones that we dont crash out of is to put ourselves in a position where we can contend for a win.

The days I feel the worst about at speedway races are the ones where we dont crash and we finish outside the top 10. Those are the real losses, to me at least. When you dont get crashed and you dont finish in the top 10, you need to take the races where you dont get crashed and you need to run and finish in the top 10. Thats the game to me.