LOUDON, N.H. — As a winner of two past races, Roush Fenway Racing owner and driver Brad Keselowski is no stranger to New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

His first win came in 2014 when he started seventh from the field of 36 and in 2020 he began the race from fourth before ultimately taking the checkered flag.

What is it going to take to get back to the podium when Keselowski’s No. 6 Ford Mustang starts ninth and attempts to navigate through the field at the Crayon 301?

“We need to be fast,” Keselowski said after qualifying on Saturday. “You really need to be top five on speed and then play the strategies and restarts right so we’ve got to get another notch up.”

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Keselowski knows the only way to fix it is to grind and keep grinding as the race goes on.

In last year’s race, Keselowski and Austin Dillon had a fit of anger that caused the two drivers to intentionally hit each other on the track.

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The Magic Mile is a unique track on the NASCAR circuit and Keselowski acknowledged what makes the track so special.

“Probably the nuances of the track you know, between one and two and three and four (turns) having different tendencies,” Keselowski explained. “One and two have a little more banking has kind of a rise to it. And then you really struggle to get in and off the corner where three and four is really bumpy and it’ll be really smooth over the bumps, so I like those nuances.”

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The 1.058-mile oval track at New Hampshire Motor Speedway is one of four 1-mile tracks in the circuit along with Dover Motor Speedway in Dover, Deleware, Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, Arizona and Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, Wisconsin.

Featured image via Matthew OHaren/USA TODAY Sports Images