CUP: It Isn’t About Being Fastest Now

Sprint Cup

CUP: It Isn’t About Being Fastest Now

Matt Kenseth said he expects track position will be critical on Sunday…

Tom Jensen | Posted October 20, 2012 Kansas City, KS

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No.17 Zest Ford will start 12th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

When Matt Kenseth climbed from the cockpit of his No. 17 Roush Fenway Ford after Happy Hour concluded at Kansas Speedway, you’d think he’d have been happy.

Wrong.

Despite putting down a lap of 182.760 miles per hour, tops among the field in Happy Hour, Kenseth knew that whoever wins Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 will probably be in Victory Lane for some reason other than having the fastest car.

“I think it’s going to be a track position game tomorrow — pit stops, strategy, restarts, fuel mileage, all that stuff, is going to be really important,” said Kenseth, the 2003 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion.

That’s the new reality in NASCAR: Having a fast car only helps so much.

“I’d actually sacrifice some of that speed to get my car turning better and looser and stay better longer, so that’s what we’re obviously working on,” said Kenseth.

The numbers bear out the fact that pure speed rarely wins races this year.

In 31 NASCAR Sprint Cup races so far this season, the driver who has led the most laps a race has won only 10 times. In eight of the 31 races, the winning driver led fewer than 30 laps.

Heading into Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway, Brad Keselowski leads Jimmie Johnson by 7 points and Denny Hamlin by 15.

Keselowski isn’t the points leader because his Penske Dodge has been the fastest car on the track most weekends. It hasn’t been.

No, Keselowski leads the points because he and crew chief Paul Wolfe have, in effect, outsmarted the competition instead of outrun them.

Johnson has led 1,314 laps this season, most in the Sprint Cup Series. Hamlin is second with 1,168 laps led. Keselowski is ranked fifth in laps led with just 642. But he’s ahead of everyone else in points because he and Wolfe have used track position, strategy and fuel mileage to win races.

Keselowski likened mental preparation in NASCAR to that of football.

“A lot of the game is mental, and being able to read defenses and things of that nature,” said Keselowski. “And there are players who don’t do that very well who just have so much raw talent that they’re able to make up for it.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m short on raw talent,” said Keselowski. “But I’ve always relied on being able to read the situation and react accordingly. And that’s always been when I’ve had the most success, so the more knowledge I can have of the situation, the better read I can make and call the right audible.”

Calling the right audible on Sunday will be critical.

With new, super-smooth pavement and rock-hard tires, there likely will be a lot of two- and no-tire pit stops and lot of different strategies.

“I think your going to spend most of the day on old tires,” said Kenseth.

“This race is going to be shook up a thousand times,” said Clint Bowyer, last weekend’s winner at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Every time you pit, people are going to take no tires, people are going to take two tires, and eventually you're going to have to take four tires and lose your track position and then wait for the next cycle to come around.

“It's just going to be a chess match, especially on the crew chiefs' side of things – the whole race,” said Bowyer. “I think you're just going to have to start setting yourself up two or three runs to go to make sure that you're on that last pit stop and not have to take tires and do the things it takes to win this thing. It's going to be important to play your cards right and make sure you have good strategy and be in the right position at the end.”

Points leader Keselowski will start from 25th place, but that might not hurt him too much. In the five races he’s won so far this year, Keselowski qualified fifth, eighth, 10th, 13th and 13th.

“I think those guys will really figure out how to go fast in race trim,” pole-sitter Kasey Kahne said of Keselowski and Wolfe. “That is what they have done all season long. They haven’t qualified great really this whole year, but they know how to race. With strategy and however they will figure out how to get to the front if they are fast enough to stay up there. You know you will see the No. 2 car at some point. They have shown that all season long.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.

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Tom Jensen

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