NASCAR: Kenseth wants more
2:34 AM 2/16/03
Jesse Osborne Wisconsin State Journal

There seemed to be a little bit more of everything for Matt Kenseth after last year's NASCAR Winston Cup season.

More respect and a growing reputation with the other drivers in the garage. More notoriety, which turned into more appearances and media requests. And most likely more money because of a new four-year contract he recently signed to stay with Roush Racing.

Even the black and yellow 17 sign that hangs on the tower at the fire department in the 30-year-old's hometown of Cambridge seems more prominent.

But after winning a series-high five times and finishing eighth in the points standings, the expectations have grown considerably, too.

"He's definitely established as a contender now," said Matt's father, Roy Kenseth. "Maybe a quiet contender, but he's there.

"His goal is to win the championship, and I see no reason why he can't. You have to have things go your way, but he's clearly good enough to do it and his team is good enough to do it. You don't win five races by accident."

This season's title chase begins with today's Daytona 500, in which Kenseth will start 35th in the No. 17 DeWalt Ford.

Had Kenseth caught a few more breaks last season, he might had challenged for the title.

But wrecks in three of the four races held at Daytona and Talladega - the circuit's pair of superspeedways - a pair of blown engines and some less-than-routine mechanical problems led to 11 finishes of 30th or worse, ruining championship aspirations and making Kenseth's eighth-place points finish was the lowest since 1976 for the driver who won the most races during the season.

"Some of the things were mistakes by me," Matt Kenseth said in a telephone interview this week from Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. "Other than that, we need to do a better job of making sure we don't blow up our engine. Four times we broke parts that we shouldn't have broken."

There was a transmission problem at Pocono, a rear end gear failure at Sears Point and blown engines at Charlotte and Homestead.

"Matt just as well as 10 other guys could have won the championship last year if he would have had decent luck," Roy Kenseth said.

That search for consistency might not lead to five race wins, but more importantly, it would likely lead toward title contention this year.

"My main goal is to be as competitive as we were last year and to be a contender most of the time," Matt Kenseth said.

His new contract, and that of crew chief and Allenton native Robbie Reiser, should ensure continuity.

Kenseth, whose contract was set to expire shortly after the conclusion of this season, had his deal reworked for this season and is locked up through 2006.

"I wanted to get it done before Daytona," said Kenseth, who cited his comfort with Reiser, his crew and the Roush Racing team as reasons why he chose not to test the free-agent market despite being perhaps the most highly sought-after driver. Car owner Jack Roush's five-car stable also includes Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle.

While the driver and crew chief are locked up, a pair of tire changers from back-to-back world pit crew competition championship teams have moved on. They played big roles in Kenseth's success last season by shaving crucial seconds off pit stops.

In addition, Kenseth will be a more frequent participant in the Busch Series this season. He got off to a strong start Saturday, finishing second to Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Koolerz 300 at Daytona.

Kenseth plans to run in 15 Busch races this year for Reiser, who initially brought him to NASCAR's second-tier circuit in 1997 and is the owner for No. 17 Bayer car. "I'm really looking forward to it," said Kenseth, who ran four Busch races last season. "It's something I missed last year."

Kenseth said the Busch ride offers a slight break from the rigors and pressure of Winston Cup and gives him a chance to have a little more fun.

"I don't think that it's possible to have any more pressure in Winston Cup than there is every week. I put so much pressure on myself every week and we work as hard as we can," Kenseth said. "I approached last year as I did 2001, and we didn't come close to winning a race in 2001."

Though winning wasn't the problem last season.

"I had a lot of fun last year," Kenseth said. "Whenever you win races like last year it's fun. There's no other feeling in the whole world like winning a Winston Cup race."

But winning a Winston Cup title might come close.

Kenseth: Daytona no joyride
NASCAR Winston Cup teams spent countless hours preparing and testing for today's season-opening Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Fla. Sponsorships and reputations are on the line. And unpredictability is the name of the race.

Ward Burton and Michael Waltrip have won the past two 500s, and each has won just once since winning the 500.

The race has little to do with individual talent and more to do with having a decent car and better luck. It's a style of racing the drivers don't particularly care for.

"You just go wide open," Cambridge native Matt Kenseth said in a phone interview from Daytona Beach earlier this week. "If your car is slow and doesn't have a good body, you're not going to do any good.

"You have to know how to work the draft. At other tracks there are things you can do to your setup."

Kenseth, who will start 35th, has finished 10th, 21st and 33rd in consecutive Daytona 500 starts. Add to that his futility in the Pepsi 500, the season's other race at Daytona, and the series' pair of races at its other superspeedway in Talladega, Ala.

"Those four races felt like throwaways," Kenseth said. "We'd run around not very good or wreck."

Daytona and Talladega are the only tracks where restrictor plates, which limit air flow to the engine resulting in less horsepower, are required by NASCAR.

The result is a bunched field racing two- and three-wide at speeds near 190 mph that usually nets crashes which collect multiple cars.

"All it takes is to lose your focus for a moment," two-time Daytona 500 winner and four-time series champion Jeff Gordon told the Associated Press. "It's hard to hold your breath for 3 hours, but that's what it feels like."

NASCAR has tried to alleviate some of the problems associated with restrictor-plate racing by reducing the size of fuel cells from 22 to 13 gallons, forcing more pit stops and, ideally, breaking up the pack.
indentKenseth said after his third-place finish in the Budweiser Shootout last Saturday at Daytona that he was optimistic he could be competitive today despite prior struggles.
indent"I hope so," Kenseth said. "This is the best start to Speed Week that we've ever had. We're running pretty good. It's definitely the fastest speedway car I've had since I've been with (Roush Racing)."
indentEven that, coupled with a second-place finish in the Busch Series Koolerz 300 Saturday at Daytona, might not be enough for a top-10 finish for Kenseth today.
indentBut the 30-year-old knows there will be 35 more opportunities to make up for a less-than ideal finish.
indent"It always matters every week, but Daytona pays the same points as Martinsville," Kenseth said. "It would be cool to win Daytona because it's one of the more historic races. But we approach it the same."