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CUP: Two Crashed Cars, Two Race Wins
Roush Fenway succeeds at Kansas despite problems…
Mike Hembree  |  Posted October 21, 2012   Kansas City, KS
Matt Kenseth, driver of the No.17 Zest Ford, celebrates with the checkered flag after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)
Roush Fenway Racing swept the race weekend at Kansas Speedway, and the Ford team did it with damaged race cars.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. rallied from two laps down to bring a damaged car home to victory in Saturday’s Nationwide Series race, and Matt Kenseth survived a turbulent day at the track Sunday to win the Hollywood Casino 400 Sprint Cup race.

“I don’t think I’ve ever strung two races together and had so many surprises, certainly not surprises that worked out in my favor,” said team co-owner Jack Roush, who watched Kenseth win for the second time in the Chase. “It was a great race track to race on, as it turned out, for us. It was surprising so many people lost their grip on the track – Jimmie Johnson, Greg Biffle and Kyle Busch all spinning by themselves. It was pretty amazing the track had that surprise for the guys.”

Pretty amazing, and pretty eventful. Spins, slides and crashes produced a track-record and season-record 14 cautions, damaging numerous cars, including those of championship contender Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Biffle and, not incidentally, Kenseth.

Kenseth slapped the wall on the backstretch on lap 173 as Aric Almirola spun. There was enough right-side damage to the car to force Kenseth to his pit for repairs.

“The guys did a good job fixing it,” said crew chief Jimmy Fennig. “He hit it pretty flat, so there wasn’t that much damage.”

Kenseth ran strong over the closing miles, leading the final 49 laps of the race and outrunning Martin Truex Jr. by .49 of a second. The last 29 laps of the race were run under green.

Kenseth, nearing the end of his run with Roush Fenway Racing, as he’ll be moving on to Joe Gibbs Racing next season, has won two of the past three Chase races but, because of mediocre or bad finishes in the first three playoff runs, is ninth in Chase points, 55 behind leader Brad Keselowski and virtually out of championship contention.

“We’ve had two great races that couldn’t be better and four that probably couldn’t be a lot worse, other than Loudon,” Kenseth said of the Chase. “It’s been up and down. … This season we started off real fast and could run in the top five every week, it felt like. Then for a couple of months we didn’t perform as well, and unfortunately one of those months ran into the Chase.

“We were a little off as a group. We made a few mistakes we typically never make and have had some other problems that cost us some finishes.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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