print story

Wojo on Wheels: Another top-10 showing for Kenseth

Rick Wojciechowski  —  6/16/2008 8:57 am

Our resident racing expert -- and confirmed Matt Kenseth fan -- reflects on yet another top-10 performance by the driver from Cambridge, a third-place effort Sunday at Michigan, where Dale Earnhardt Jr. snapped a 75-race drought by coasting home on fumes to win the LifeLock 400.

Matt was tough on Sunday, but he should have finished first. He was pulling out of the pits on lap 189, his last stop, and right then a NASCAR official wanted to check his tire and jumped right in front of him. That lost him the race. He had a really, really, really nice car.

I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose; maybe he thought Matt wasn't leaving yet or just wanted to do a quick spot-check. The official probably wanted to see if lugnuts were on tight because if they're loose, you get a drive-back penalty, which costs you time and position.

Sure, Junior won on a caution, but good for him. Good to get the monkey off his back.

Meanwhile, Matt's had four top-10 finishes in the last four races, and he's sneaking back up there in the points standings. He's 15th in the point standings and only 34 points behind Tony Stewart for 12th place, the cutoff for the Chase for the Championship.

And Michigan's a good race, fun to watch, because it's usually a clean race and there are four or five grooves that you can run. Matt likes a car that has forward bite, that can turn well, just grips the thing and turns beautifully. And he had that Sunday. He was passing cars like they were standing still.

It's impressive just how dominating Ford -- Roush-Fenway -- is at that track. They're always at the front. And I don't know if Papa Jack Roush knows something about the track, or what. But something must have happened over the offseason break before daytona. They must have figured out something. Because last year they couldn't figure out the Car of Tomorrow to save their lives. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon were running away with things, but now people seem to be catching up.

Now, we're headed to Infineon Raceway in California. Matt doesn't fare well on road courses, so if he can squeeze out a top 15 I'd be very happy. The next race after that is Daytona and he's always good there.

Rick Wojciechowski  —  6/16/2008 8:57 am