Kenseth credits team, racing luck with recent surge in performance
By SceneDaily Staff
Friday, July 11, 2008
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JOLIET, Ill. – Matt Kenseth enters Saturday’s LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on a roll.
Following a third-place finish in last weekend’s Sprint Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway, Kenseth gained four spots and rose to ninth in the series standings.
Though the Roush Fenway Racing driver must still perform over the next eight races to land one of the top 12 spots to qualify for the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup – he’s only 23 points ahead of 13th-place Kevin Harvick – Kenseth is in a much better position than two months ago when he fell to 22nd in the standings.
The biggest reason for his ascent has been simply running better. In eight races, the driver has finished worse than eighth just once.
If Kenseth can maintain that pace all the way through the final race of NASCAR’s regular season at Richmond International Raceway on Sept. 6, the 2003 series champion should make the Chase.
“I feel good about what we’ve been able to do the last couple of months, in general,” Kenseth said at Chicagoland Speedway, where he’ll start ninth in Saturday’s field that was set according to Sprint Cup owner points when qualifying was rained out. “We’ve had a couple of races where we’ve been off, where we haven’t maybe done everything exactly right. In general, I feel [good] about where we’re at. You’re not comfortable where you are in the standings, obviously, until you go to Richmond and you’re 152 points, or whatever it is, ahead of 13th place. Then you’re comfortable. So, you’re never really comfortable until you work your way up there a little farther.
“I’m comfortable with how we’re running. We’re a lot more competitive, and we’re operating more like a championship team here the last month or two. So, that gives me some confidence.”
Kenseth credits his recent gains on a combination of better racing luck and the diligence of his Chip Bolin-led crew.
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“[It’s been] a little bit of both,” he said. “Some of it is probably circumstances, but a lot of it was just trying to get better and do things at a higher level and just do a better job at the things we weren’t doing the best we could at. So, I think everybody took that area and I think everybody stepped up a little bit and just did their job better the last couple of months.”
Now, the Wisconsin native is hoping to carry his momentum into this weekend’s first night race at Chicagoland, a place that he considers to be almost like a home track.
"I like racing Saturday nights,” he said. “I like the track. It’s the closest geographically to where I grew up, so I always see a lot of family and friends and race fans that I used to see, so that part’s always extra fun.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Matt Kenseth
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