Brad Keselowski goes into Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway hungry to return to victory lane in the NASCAR Cup Series.

“That’s all that matters right now is the wins,” Keselowski said.

RFK Racing came close in the Daytona 500 last month. Keselowski and teammate Chris Buescher played the best teamwork game and appeared to be the fastest Ford combination. Not only did they stick together throughout the event, but they could routinely push their way to the front of the field.

Keselowski led the most laps, 42, but was involved in one of the last crashes. Buescher finished fourth.

Auto Club Speedway last weekend was another strong showing. Keselowski finished seventh, leaving him imbued by the performance of his Ford.

The biggest struggle for Keselowski & Co. last season was on high-speed and flat racetracks. While Auto Club is a unique racetrack with its speed, size and surface characteristics, Keselowski sees both identities in Fontana, which is why the No. 6 team is looking forward to taking those tricks elsewhere.

“It is a unique track, but there are some things that carry over on a week-to-week basis, and our struggles last year on flatter tracks and really big tracks carried over everywhere,” Keselowski said. “So, to show some strength there was really encouraging.”

He rebounded for a top-10 finish after being spun by Corey LaJoie early in the day. Afterward, Keselowski tweeted he was “feeling the progress.”

“Just way more competitive,” he said. “(We had) raw speed. We weren’t where we needed to be, but I feel like we were significantly off last year on raw speed on the bigger tracks – mile-and-a-half, two-mile tracks – and we closed a good bit of that gap at California. I’m optimistic about this weekend.”

Keselowski is so optimistic that he’s using the odds as motivation — listed as a +5,000 odd to win the Pennzoil 400.

“I think we got a shot at it,” he said. “I saw the odds get published and I smirked a little bit because I really would like to make an oddsmaker really sad this weekend…or at least a couple hotels around here. I think we got a good shot at that.

“I don’t know if we’re a favorite, but they’re going to lose a lot of money if we run the way I think we can run. There is a little kid in me that is grinning ear to ear for that.”

It’s approaching three years since Keselowski last won a Cup Series race, doing so in late April at Talladega Superspeedway. His last non-superspeedway win was in the fall of 2020 at Richmond Raceway.

Having gone so long without one makes Keselowski appreciate his previous 35 victories more. But the former series champion – and three-time Las Vegas winner – knew it wouldn’t be immediate when he grabbed the 36th one when joining forces with Jack Roush.

“It’s somewhat to be expected,” Keselowski said of the drought. “I knew when I made the move here that it wasn’t going to be roses, and I have this conversation all the time with my wife (where she says), ‘You signed up for this.’”

He continued with a laugh, “Yeah, thanks for the reminder. And I knew when I signed up for it, I wasn’t signing up for something that was going to be easy, but it’ll be that much more rewarding when we do get there.”