Have a FaceBook, Twitter, or other social networking account?

Link them to your fanatic account!

Add An Account

TAKE ME TO...
NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Numbers Strong For Kenseth
Matt Kenseth has improved his finish in every Chase race since the opener at Chicagoland Speedway...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted October 12, 2011   Charlotte, NC
Matt Kenseth sits fifth in the standings, just 12 points out of first. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
You’ve got to watch out for the quiet ones — they’re always the most dangerous.

And in the NASCAR Sprint Cup world, that means Matt Kenseth is someone for the other 11 drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup to be wary of.

Kenseth, who won the Cup championship in 2003, enters this week’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in a very favorable position. At the opening race for the Chase for the Sprint Cup at Chicagoland Speedway, Kenseth ran up front all day but fuel mileage issues dropped him to 21st in the final rundown.

Since then, he’s constantly improved: Sixth at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, fifth at Dover International Speedway and last Sunday, fourth at Kansas Speedway.

Kenseth now sits fifth in the standings, just 12 points behind his Roush Fenway Racing teammate Carl Edwards. Certainly, the competition is as stout as it’s ever been before or since the adoption of the Chase format in 2004. That said, Kenseth is more than holding his own.

One of the things working in his favor is the speed of his Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusions. According to NASCAR’s loop data statistics, Kenseth’s average running position in the four Chase races so far has been 8.41, which trails only Jimmie Johnson (5.50) and Kyle Busch (7.71). And in the last three races, Kenseth’s average finish of 5.0 is best among the 12 Chase drivers.

Although Kenseth doesn’t have the high media profile that Johnson and Edwards do, he’s nevertheless extremely dangerous right now.

Saturday night at CMS, Kenseth has a chance to make up some ground on the leaders. He won his first career Cup race here in May 2000 and hasn’t finished worse than 14th here in his last five races.

“I am really encouraged with how we’ve run,” said Kenseth. “We have to improve on finishing it off a little better. Whatever our best run of the day is and best stop and best restart and performance needs to be the last run of the day. We need to get the finishes a little bit better.”

Like the rest of the drivers, Kenseth has had to learn to live with the vagaries of fuel-mileage races, which have had a big impact on the outcome of races this year.

“I think Chicago is a perfect example,” he said. “It is a pretty normal track ... and a pretty normal race but the way the cautions fell and not having another caution, a lot of the guys that ran really good got really poor finishes because of fuel. Some guys you didn’t see all day and probably ran in the bottom half of the teens got great finishes and moved up in the points. You don’t know what can happen. You can have pretty big swings and a lot of strange things have happened before.”

And that’s added another skill set that drivers have to manage in races.

“You have to be good at all aspects of it these days,” said Kenseth. “That didn’t used to come into play a lot but it has recently. You have to have the performance and economy when you need it and pit strategy when you need it.”

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.
tom_jensen's avatar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR
Advertising | Jobs | Feedback | FAQ | Terms of Use | NEW Privacy Policy | Ad Choices | Site Map
Fox Sports | FUEL TV | FX Network | National Geographic | IGN | AskMen
The Motor Sports Authority, SPEED and associated logos are registered trademarks of Speed Channel Inc.
All Rights Reserved © Speed Channel, Inc. 2012

All external links will open in a new browser window. SPEED.com does not endorse external sites.