Unassuming Matt Kenseth poised to surprise again in championship race

Matt Kenseth may be the most laid-back, unassuming driver on the Sprint Cup circuit.

He’s not flashy nor outspoken nor colorful, though he does have a sly, dry sense of humor. He doesn’t seek the spotlight, doesn’t draw attention to himself and typically shies from controversy.

He prefers to fly as low below the radar as he can possibly get.

That’s why he sneaks up on people, winning races and contending for championships when you least expect it.

Kenseth won the Sprint Cup championship in 2003, following the reign of Jeff Gordon and the rise of Tony Stewart and just before the dawn of the Chase era. He won the last Cup title under NASCAR’s old championship format, which he is reminded of often.

Since then, he’s won 14 Cup races, finished second in the standings in 2006 and made the Chase For The Sprint Cup in seven of the past eight years.

Yet, he is still flying under the radar.

That’s the way Kenseth likes it. And that’s a big reason he just might win his second Cup title this year.

“It doesn’t really matter to me that much what everybody thinks, whether we’re in it or out of it or whatever,” Kenseth said after winning the Chase race last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“What’s important to me is trying to win races and trying to be competitive and go do the best job we can do every week. I don’t really care about Wii dance-offs or how much coverage you get for doing certain things. If somebody wants to say I’m boring or whatever, I was hired to try to go win races and try to run good and that’s what I try to do every week.

“I take my job real serious when I’m at the race track. [Crew chief] Jimmy [Fennig] and I and all the guys work as hard as we can on the common goal of trying to be the best and trying to win and trying to run for a championship, and that’s who we are at the race track.”

For the first time since 2006, Kenseth is a serious title contender. Last week’s win, his third of the season, vaulted him to third in points. He is just seven behind leader and Roush Fenway Racing teammate Carl Edwards with five races remaining.

A year after going winless for the second time in three years and enduring a 76-race winless streak, Kenseth is a factor again. Only two drivers have more than his three wins and his consistency, a career trademark, has him in the title hunt.

Of the top four drivers in the standings, Kenseth has the most Chase and championship experience. Not only has he won a championship, so has Fennig, who won the inaugural Chase with Kurt Busch.

Team co-owner Jack Roush says he would put that combination up against anyone.

“Jimmy is a championship quality crew chief,” Roush said. “He won with Kurt Busch a few years ago and Matt won with Robbie [Reiser] and, of course, Robbie is our general manager now.

“We’ve got a lot of depth in the organization. It was just a matter of time until Matt broke loose from his obscurity in the back and middle of the pack and worked his way to the front.”

Now Roush and Kenseth are in prime position to win another title. Edwards leads Kevin Harvick by five points and has led the standings much of the season.

Though the Roush organization has won just five races this year (one each by Edwards and David Ragan), it seems to be peaking at the right time and may have a big advantage in its performance on 1.5-mile tracks.

Kenseth won at 1.5-mile Charlotte and two of the final three races are on 1.5-mile tracks, including Texas, which Kenseth won in April. Edwards won the season finale at Homestead, another 1.5-mile track, last year.

“We’re at the top of our game as far as our mile-and-a-half program,” Roush said. “There are other teams that have got good programs, but nobody has a better mile-and-a-half program than us.”

Roush believes his organization could have, and should have, won more races this season and says his team is in prime position to win a third Cup championship.

“We’ve had a lot of races that we’ve missed just because we made the wrong decision that worked out for two tires [or] no tires,” he said. “We’ve been challenged with judgments about how much fuel was in the tank a couple of times, but we’re in championship form.

“In my 24 years I’ve never had better cars for the championship stretch than we’ve got and we’re anxious to see how it’s going to work out.”

The unassuming Kenseth, meanwhile, has his head down and his nose to the grindstone. He is focused on the next race, just like always. He swears he doesn’t even know where he is in the standings or how many points he is behind.

“I have to be honest, I don’t know where anybody is at in

the points, really,” he said after last week’s race. “All we have any control over – and we always can’t control the whole outcome of that – is our own car and ourselves and what we do, so I honestly don’t spend a lot of time to see where anybody else finishes or what they have going.

“We go out every week and try to beat the other 42 cars and

finish as high as we can and that’s how you get the most points and not really worry about what everybody else does.”

Kenseth is just happy to be winning races again and back in championship contention.

“It’s been 20 races [since we won], which doesn’t really seem that long because I don’t know how many it was before that, but I think it was 70-some before that,” he said.

“You’re always thankful. I’m always thankful to get to victory lane. You never know if you’re ever going to win another race or when your last win is, and I’m certainly thankful for them all and I greatly appreciate being in a position to be able to win races and these guys giving me the cars and the crew and the opportunity to do that.”