Kenseth cautiously optimistic about remainder of season
By SceneDaily Staff
Saturday, June 28, 2008
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LOUDON, N.H. - Matt Kenseth admits that it's nice to be back in the top 12 in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings. But, he cautions against his Roush Fenway Racing team getting too caught up in that position.
Kenseth says that his team still has a lot of work to do as it approaches the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup, the 12-driver championship-determining field. Only 10 races remain before that group is locked into the race and Kenseth says that his team has goals higher than being 12th in the standings.
Still, as he looks over his team, he sees improvement in every area.
"If we look at all the problems that we’ve had this year and sit down and kind of analyze them, we’ve had a little bit of everything," he said. "We’ve not put together some stuff not right. I’ve made some mistakes driving. We’ve just had a little bit of everything happen, so we’ve been able to try and fine-tune the whole program.
"I think everybody is working better together right now as a unit. I think we’re getting better on pit road. The car is getting prepared better. I think [crew chief] Chip [Bolin] and I have been able to communicate a little bit better and, hopefully, I’ve been able to give them a little better information to get our cars running better.”
Bolin took over as crew chief for the team this season, replacing longtime Kenseth team leader Robbie Reiser, who became general manager of Roush Fenway. Kenseth said there wasn't a challenge in getting used to Bolin, but that the challenge was the two of them making the move while learning NASCAR's new car.
"A lot of it has been my fault," he said. "This car is a lot different than the other car that we used to have and I needed to try to work harder to understand it and give him better feedback so he could help me get the car to drive the way I wanted it to.”
Kenseth was well outside championship contention a few races ago. He was 204 points out and 22nd in the standings after the May Richmond race, a run he has followed with six consecutive top-10 finishes. That run has put him in the 12th spot, but now he wants to gain a little cushion on the 13th-place team and get more solidly in the Chase.
To do that, Bolin says that they need to stay on top of their game.
"The Chase is just around the corner and is really what it’s all about," he said in a news release. "The reason that the guys on this team do what they do and work as hard as they do is to win a championship. There really isn’t any other goal on this team, so now’s the time for us to step up and perform and really bring out the ‘A game.’ I feel like our team is as good as any out there and if we can continue to get these cars better and better then we’ll have a good shot at this.”
Kenseth says that his team just needs to continue the recent run of strong performances.
“We’ve got to keep being consistent," he said. "We have to keep from making mistakes. We’re really close, but we just need to get a little better. I think at Michigan we had a car that performance-wise was capable of winning and that’s really the first time since Vegas that we had a car that was a serious contender to win the race.
"It all starts there. If we can bring cars to the race track that are prepared and are fast enough to go up there and run in the top five and
contend for wins, if you don’t make mistakes, the rest of it will kind of take care of itself on average.”
So will running well.
Kenseth is certainly no stranger to rallying into the Chase. He did so in 2005, a year when he earned one of what was then 10 spots in the field with just one race to spare. This year hasn't been any more wearing on the team than that run was, but this season Kenseth has found himself worrying more about the overall performance of his team.
He hopes to see that change as the Chase nears. If history is any indicator, he should run well this weekend in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire. Kenseth has three consecutive top-10 finishes at the track and 10 in the last 11 races there.
"Honestly, I wasn’t and I’m not really concerned about our points position," he said. "I was more concerned with how we were running and how we were operating and me getting in wrecks like we were at Richmond and running in the back. I was more concerned about all of that stuff because if you fix all that stuff, usually you’ll get better finishing positions and the points will take care of themselves.
"So, really, I was more concerned about getting the whole thing rolling and getting everybody’s attitudes good and the momentum rolling and getting a spring in everybody’s step and ... working together like we know we’re capable of doing.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Matt Kenseth
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