NASCAR WCUP: Matt Kenseth has gained good reputation at Dover
20 September 2000
Posted By Terry
Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
|
MATT KENSETH --17-- DeWalt Tools Taurus -- YOU MADE YOUR WINSTON CUP DEBUT AT DOVER TWO YEARS AGO AT THIS RACE. DID THAT SERVE AS A SPRINGBOARD? "Yeah, it was a fun weekend for me. Dover is one of my best tracks anyway, one of my favorite tracks probably, and it was fun to work with Mike Beam, Joe Garone and all the guys there . For me to be able and run my first Winston Cup race was a big thrill. Dover was a good place to do it and we had a real good car. We ran up front all day and it was a lot of fun."
DO YOU FEEL THAT ACCELERATED YOUR TIMETABLE TO WINSTON CUP FULL-TIME? "I'm sure it didn't hurt anything. We were already trying to work on putting this program together, but I'm sure that helped everything. I'm sure it helped DeWalt become more interested in doing it on the Winston Cup side and for Jack to get the program together maybe a little bit faster, so I'm sure it helped."
DO YOU LIKE THE CONCRETE? "I like it. I just like the race track. I never raced there when it was asphalt. They say it was a lot more fun when it was asphalt, but for a concrete track Dover is pretty good. By the time the Busch race is over the track is usually at least three grooves wide and you can pass and run high or low and kind of run all over the place. It's fun. It's not just one groove because of the concrete. Some of the problems you have at Bristol is you can't run on the outside and run side-by-side, where at Dover that doesn't really seem to be the case. You can widen the track out a little bit."
IS THERE ANY PARTICULAR PLACE ON THE TRACK THAT YOU HAVE TO BE AWARE OF? "Yeah, you kind of drive off a cliff going in there from the straightaway to the corner. You kind of drive downhill into the corner and uphill out of the corner, so coming off both of the corners in turn two and turn four is kind of tricky. It's a very narrow exit, so you have to have your car pointed in the right direction. It's very difficult to come off there side-by-side at speed, so those are the tricky parts. I think turn two is probably a little trickier than turn four."
YOUR NEW TEAMMATE KURT BUSCH WILL MAKE HIS WINSTON CUP DEBUT AT DOVER, MUCH LIKE YOU DID TWO YEARS AGO. WILL YOU GIVE HIM ANY ADVICE? "I don't think he's gonna need much help. They went there to test and we helped them up out with their setup and they went and ran what we did last time. They ran real good at their test. I guess they ran fast enough in qualifying trim that it would have been on the outside pole, so it seemed like they ran good and had a real productive test. They really liked the race track and they really ran good, so Dover is one of those tracks that if you have the car working good it's not real hard to drive around. Kurt is just naturally talented and really fast wherever he goes, so I look for him to do really good."
THE SEASON GETS LONG. HOW DO YOU FEEL AT THIS STAGE OF THE YEAR? "I feel like it's been a long season. It's been pretty good and we're all still really enthused about racing, but the last two weeks we've been running in the top 10 and had problems where we finished real bad. That kind of gets everybody down a little bit when you don't get the finishes like you feel you deserved and those poor finishes are due to circumstances you can't really control. If we can get back on track and get some more good runs in everybody will be pumped up. We're always excited when we go to Dover and Charlotte and tracks like that which are good for us, so I'm looking forward to that."
YOU'VE SAID YOU DON'T REALLY CONCENTRATE ON THE ROOKIE RACE, BUT WITH ONLY EIGHT RACES LEFT IS IT SOMETHING YOU LOOK AT A LITTLE MORE? "A little bit, but three races ago we probably had a pretty comfortable lead and everything was looking pretty good, and then we had three finishes in a row in the thirties. I try not to get too carried away with all the points stuff because you can really throw it away in a hurry if you don't do your job. We haven't been having very good finishes lately, so we just need to get back on track and get some more top 10 finishes before the end of the year and see where it all shakes out."
YOU WON AT CHARLOTTE EARLIER IN THE YEAR AND YOU'RE GOING BACK THERE AGAIN, BUT DO YOU FEEL THIS TEAM HAS ANOTHER WIN UNDER ITS HAT THIS YEAR? "If we get everything right I think we can. At Darlington I feel like we had a sixth or seventh place car, which was pretty decent, and the same with Richmond but we didn't get the finishes. So I think when we go to Dover and Charlotte and all of those places, if we can get up and get our car so it handles good enough and we can race in the top five most of the day, we'll have a shot at it."
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