CUP: Kenseth Looking Ahead Already

Sprint Cup

CUP: Kenseth Looking Ahead Already

Matt Kenseth was the big winner at Talladega…

Tom Jensen | Posted October 10, 2012 Charlotte, NC

Matt Kenseth is on his way out at Roush Fenway Racing. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Matt Kenseth is a driver with one foot in each of two worlds right now.

On the one hand, the 2003 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion is coming off a victory at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, where he survived a last-lap wreckfest to win his second restrictor-plate race of the season.

On the other hand, Kenseth is already looking ahead to 2013 when he’ll change teams for the first time in his NASCAR Sprint Cup career and join the powerhouse Joe Gibbs Racing squad.

Realistically, Kenseth has no shot at a second championship this season. Even with his Talladega victory, he’s still 12th in points, 62 behind leader Brad Keselowski. Kenseth might be able to work his way into the top half of the field for the Chase for the Sprint Cup, but that’s likely his best-case scenario at this point.

Kenseth said he’s pleased that Roush Fenway Racing continues to support him this season, even though he’s leaving at the end of the year.

“Everybody's been good as gold to me over there,” Kenseth said of the Roush Fenway operation. “They always have been. And they still are right now. And they're giving us everything we need to go run good and try to win races, as this weekend was proof of that.

“So we're working as hard as we can until the end of 2012. A long time ago we renewed our agreement to the end of 2012. And it really says a lot about, I think, Roush Fenway's integrity, because they've really stuck to that agreement.”

That said, it’s also natural for Kenseth to be looking forward to 2013 with a mixture of excitement and perhaps a slight touch of nerves.

“I don't think there's any apprehension at all,” Kenseth said. “But there's certainly a small amount or some amount of anxiety. I mean, everything's different from the building to all the people, to the manufacturer, to the sponsors, the crew chief. All the stuff is different.”

And with change comes challenges.

“There's a little bit of anxiety over that, just because you're real comfortable for where I've been for so many years, and I'm not usually a guy that likes change,” said Kenseth. “But, on the other hand, it's also really, really exciting.”

Despite whatever minor discomfort Kenseth has with making the change, he also has a strong sense of optimism.

“I've been with one of the best organizations in the sport for 15 years, been driving there 10 or 12, 13 years, whatever it's been, and we've had a pretty good amount of success there,” he said. “But at the same time, I also get to go to another one of the winningest organizations in the sport and have two of the winningest drivers over there right now and go to a car that's won championships and a lot of races.”

Kenseth said he figures a fresh team and a fresh look at how Joe Gibbs Racing operates will be good for him.

“It’s also real exciting to go try something different and see how things are done somewhere else, because obviously they have a lot of success as well,” he said. “So I am really excited about it. But, yeah, there's a little bit of anxiety just because it's all going to be different.”

Kenseth’s Chase got off to an awful start, with an average finish of 22.3 in the first three races. While winning at Talladega didn’t move him out of 12th-place, it certainly was an uplifting moment.

“It's really important for me to finish this thing off on a high note,” he said. “It would just break my heart if the thing was broken when I left. So I certainly didn't want that. ... I'm hoping in the next six weeks we can continue this momentum, hoping we can get another win or two and finish as high as we can in the points and end this thing on a high note.”

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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