Matt Kenseth passed Roush Racing teammate Jamie McMurray with just four laps remaining at Dover on Sunday en route to his second victory of the season. McMurray finished second. The victory was the 12th of Kenseth’s career, and first at the Monster Mile. Kenseth remains in second place in the standings, just 74 points off the pace.
KENSETH WINS FOR SECOND TIME IN 2006
· Matt Kenseth took the checkered flag for the 12th time in his NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series career with this afternoon’s victory. His previous best finish at Dover was second in 2000.
· The win is Kenseth’s second of the season, making him the third multiple winner of 2006 (Johnson/Kahne).
· Ford has now won 573 all-time NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series races.
· Ford’s win this afternoon is its 21st at Dover International Speedway.
· The last Ford triumph at Dover occurred when Greg Biffle won this event in 2005.
ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 38 M&M’s Fusion (finished 40th) – “We had some lugnuts come loose, had to come back in, got us a couple of laps down. Then it was just finish, and we couldn’t even do that correctly. It’s just been a tough season for us. Everybody at the Robert Yates shop is working hard, and M&M&’s and Citifinancial and all the guys are really behind us, but we just can’t seem to buy a break right now.”
PROBLEMS STARTED EARLY. “Yeah, just a loose wheel, I’m not sure which one it was, but it was the right side. It’s a shame, we had a top-10 or -11 car we feel like, and it’s just a shame to end the day like this. The 49 blew up getting into turn three and I just got in his oil and lost it, spun out and hit the wall. It’s just a bad day here at Dover, and the saga continues for Robert Yates Racing. We’re just having a tough, tough couple of weeks.”
MARK MARTIN – No. 6 AAA Fusion (finished 9th) – “We had a winning race car and had a bad day with it. Ran ninth.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Fusion (finished 15th) – IT WAS LIKE TWO RACES, ONE EARLY WITHOUT CAUTIONS AND ONE LATE WITH CAUTIONS. “Yeah, it would’ve been nice if it would’ve kept going like that. But we got all those cautions, and we just didn’t keep up with the setup as well as we should have. Oh, well. It was a fun race.”
MATT KENSETH AND JAMIE MCMURRAY PRESS CONFERENCES TO FOLLOW…JAMIE McMURRAY press conference
JAMIE McMURRAY (finished 2nd) – IRWIN Industrial Tools Fusion –
“We had a very lucky day. I went a lap down and eventually got my lap back because we had two or three cautions – pitted and put tires on and the leaders had kept staying out at that time and we knew we were going to stay out since our tires were new and we were full of gas. Our only concern was that we weren’t going to be able to make it on fuel. I noticed that Kevin actually came in on the pit stop and put gas in, so we were really concerned with making it on fuel, but then when the guys blew the motors up, that put us definitely making the race, we just didn’t know with the green-white-checkered.
My car’s been good all weekend. Once I got out in clean air it was really fast. I didn’t think it was that fast until I would look up and I could see how fast I was getting away from Kevin. Like he said, his car was better at the end.” DID YOU USE UP YOUR TIRES AT THE END? “We made an air-pressure adjustment and probably went the wrong way, which made it good at the beginning but wasn’t as good at the end. We struggled so much all day long on brand-new tires, and I was just so loose in order to make my car want to turn at the need of a run that Bob made an adjustment right at the end and it made my car run good on the short runs, but it gave up a little bit.
My car was good. The 17 was up front all day. When I could see Matt catching Kevin I knew that was going to make it interesting because Kevin was out to kind of protect the outside and try to pass me and I knew it was going to probably benefit me a little bit. I just got tight at the end, though.”
WITH FEW CAUTIONS EARLY, WAS YOUR STRATEGY BASED ON CAUTIONS HAPPENING LATE? “When he got the lead, under caution, we ran like 11 laps or something under caution, and we decided with one to go to stay out. I think we needed a total of 20 caution laps and we had like 13 of them already. I told Bob, ‘I’ll support you even if we run out of gas.’ Because, traffic, it so hard to pass cars and there were like 20 cars on the lead lap at that time so once we got a couple extra caution-flag laps, he said we were good to go. It was a gamble, but we made it.”
ON BEING CLOSE TO WINNING HIS SECOND RACE. “Yeah, you’re very disappointed – especially to come that close. I was like three or four laps or something from the end, and when Matt passed me I lost all my momentum. I went up to kind of block him, and when I did I lost all my speed. He just barely cleared me when he came up in front of me, and if he hadn’t cleared me I think I could’ve got back around him, but just kind of see that away within like 100 feet and I knew once he got in front of me I thought,
‘I have no chance unless something happens to his car,’ of passing him back, so it’s very disappointing when you want to win. But we’ve come a long ways already in the last 15 races. We made a crew-chief change and we’re changing cars and doing all kinds of stuff. For our race team, we were trying to take a 25th-place car at the beginning of the year and just try to get in the top 10. To be able to compete for a win, that’s a big deal for us right now. It’s very, very disappointing and very frustrating when you have four other teammates who have shots to win races almost every single week, and you know everything they have, and the shocks and springs and everything about their cars, and that’s frustrating when you can’t make that work. So, it definitely feels good today.”
MATT KENSETH press conference
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Fusion (finished 1st) – “Obviously, it was great. We had a great car all day. We kind of started in the middle of the pack and were able to make the right adjustments to the car. Robbie and Chip did a great job last night of figuring what they wanted to put in the car, and coming up with a plan and stick with it and it worked well. That’s by far the best we ever performed here, and it was an exciting race to be part of it and I’m glad that we came out on top.”
ROBBIE REISER – crew chief, No. 17 DeWalt Fusion – “It was pretty uneventful for us. We didn’t really make a lot of changes to the car and the way the cautions fell, and the early part of the race it was pretty much straight forward. Towards the end there when we had the cautions right in a row we had to make some decisions and we just basically stayed out until we got to our fuel window and then pitted. And then at the end I thought that we needed tires and Matt thought we didn’t. He knew what he had there and made a decision to stay out, and thank God he won the race because we’d probably be in the trailer fighting right now.”
MATT KENSETH, continued – YOU MADE A CLEAN PASS ON TEAMMATE JAMIE MCMURRAY ON LAP 397; WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN WILLING TO USE THE FRONT BUMPER TO MOVE HIM, IF NECESSARY, TO WIN THE RACE?
“No. It’s not really that kind of track, first of all. No, I wouldn’t. It didn’t make any difference that it was my teammate. To be really honest with you, if it was switched around and Jamie was second and Harvick was first I would’ve raced both the same way. I think you should race people how you want to be raced. I don’t think either one of them guys would’ve punted me out of the way. At this kind of track if you get into somebody you’re going to wreck ’em. They were leaving me plenty of room to pass. The track is so good here that you can run two- and three-wide and there’s plenty of room to pass. There’s certainly is no excuse to run somebody over. There’s plenty of room to get underneath somebody. They both gave me a full lane to race in. It was just up to me to figure out how to get my car to get through the corner fast enough to get in front of ’em.”
AT WHAT POINT DID YOU REALIZE THAT YPU HAD THE CAR TO GET PAST KEVIN HARVICK? “When I got under him, I caught them guys pretty good because they got racing each other side-by-side and I was able to catch up to them pretty quick with 10 to go or 15 to go or something, and I was able to get under Kevin and thought I had the pass made and I got real, real sideways loose getting into the corner. I lost a big amount, 10 or 15 car lengths, so at that point, I think we were at 10 to go, I honestly didn’t think I was going to get by either one of them. We lost our momentum there and I knew I needed to regroup and come up with some kind of plan to not get along side of them in the wrong place, to get the pass finished before I got through the corners so I could get up in front of them on the straightaway. The problem was I could get three-quarters of the way by him, but then they’d come down the straightaway on your right-rear and they’d pass you again down the straightaway when you’re all bogged down on the bottom, and it was hard to finish the pass so I knew I needed to try to make a different entry into the corner to try to finish it. But, just caught him at the right time and was able to just barely squeeze in front of both of them.”
MATT KENSETH, continued – ON THE DISAGREEMENT WITH ROBBIE REGARDING THE DECISION TO STAY OUT AND NOT PIT.
“There’s a couple factors. At the time I knew about where we had on tires. I thought we were a little faster then the four cars in front of me, and them guys all stayed out and I saw a few cars behind me that I knew were good cars, but I knew that really didn’t run with us most of the day and I thought there were enough cars that looked like they might stay out that they would slow the proree of the guy with the new tires. I just thought that was my only chance to win the race. I felt like, in my head, that if we got four tires we weren’t going to get back up and win the race – we might finish second or third or fourth or fifth, but I just thought it was our best chance to win. The really wasn’t any discussion. He just told me to pit and I didn’t say anything. I just kind of watched what everybody did and when I saw everybody stay out I just kind of decided on my own to stay out. When I looked over going down the frontstretch and saw the look on his face, I knew I better finish pretty good or it was going to be a long couple of months.”
THIS ONCE WAS A DIFFICULT TRACK FOR YOU, BUT NOT IN THE LAST FEW YEARS. WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? “It was all psychological. For years and years I’ve always said it was my favorite track – this is sort of a joke, so don’t take this too serious about psychological – but I’ve always said it was my favorite track. Every time I go to hospitality, fans, one of the first things they always ask you is your favorite track, and I’ve always said Dover. And, ever time we drive in this track, it’s just always been a real special place for me from the Busch Series and winning some races here with Robbie in the Busch car and driving Bill’s car and doing all that, so every time we get here on Thursday me and Katie drive the rental car in over the track and I look at the bank and I always tell her how cool it is, ‘Isn’t this track awesome? I love coming here. It’s so great.’ We drove in this time and I said, ‘Man, I hate this place. I can’t wait until we get out of here Sunday,’ and I was joking of course, and that was really the difference for us.”
KYLE BUSCH WAS CONCERNED THAT HE HELD YOU UP TOO MUCH. ONCE YOU CLEARED HIM HE SAID YOU WERE HIS PICK TO WIN. WAS THERE ANY CONCERN WITH GETTING BY HIM WHEN YOU REACHED HIM? “Yeah. It’s a hard thing to figure out in tat situation because if someone’s catching you and they get underneath you, there’s only 40 to go and he probably thought we were a little closer to the same speed so he was going to try to raceme, but I was running a little different line. He was running the bottom and I was mowin’ ’em down and as soon as caught him he moved up to my line and I just couldn’t figure out how to get by him – which is all right. It all turned out in the end. I wish I would’ve gotten by a little quicker, being so many laps left and thought we were quite bit faster but that’s just part of it. You got to race your own car, and figure out what’s going to make your own car finish the best.”
JACK ROUSH – Owner, Roush Racing – ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU KNOW HAVE ALL FIVE CARS I N THE TOP 15 IN POINTS. CAN ALL FIVE MAKE THE CHASE AGAIN THIS YEAR? “It’s a very definite possibility. I think that our furthest back car now is 15th, and we’re coming hard. We ran well at Charlotte, ran well here. Whether we are able to put all five of our cars in the top 10 by the second Richmond race won’t be determined by how many races we win but by how many parts we break and how many flat tires we have at the wrong time and many wrecks we have. If we can race clean, the guys will have a very, very, very, very good chance of getting in there because they communicate well with one another, they help one another and, of course, we’ve got lots of speed.”
ROBBIE REISER, continued – YOU AND MATT HAVE WORKED TOGETHER FOR SO LONG. HOW MAD WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN IF MATT’S DECISION TO STAY OUT TURNED OUT NOT TO BE A GOOD ONE? “In answer to the first question, I probably wouldn’t have been that mad. We’ve been doing this a long time and we put him in a lot worse situations than this, where cars have run 30th and 40th at times, so it just comes with the territory. Sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t. Everybody on this DeWalt team has pretty much got a hand in it. As we make decisions we make mistakes and we live with it. It’s just the way it is. This deal ain’t easy, so we’ll just go through it that way. On the relation part, we just won a race. I like to race as much as Matt likes to race and we put everything we got into it and we got a great race team that’s supports everything we’re doing, including myself and Matt, and I think that’s why it makes it work. Jack gives everything we need to go racing with, and Matt’s my friend as much as he is my teammate, so we just work together. He sees things like I see them. We just don’t always agree with ’em. When the day’s over we pretty much come up with the same common goal that we want to win so that’s we go after.”
MATT KENSETH, continued – ON THE TURNAROUND FROM LAST YEAR REGARDING CONFIDENCE. “Confidence is high but, really, honestly, since we’ve been with Robbie and Jack when we put this DeWalt team together, I don’t know, it’s been seven years ago now, there was only one stretch that I can think of where I wasn’t very confident. We didn’t have the right stuff, couldn’t figure out how to make them go fast and do all that stuff. There was only one year or less than a year. Other than that, I was still confident last year. We weren’t in as good of a position in points and we were getting in wrecks, and flat tires and was having all kinds of problems, but all my teammates last year were running great and that was a confidence builder. Greg was winning every other race, so I knew we had all the stuff and we just had to work through it and keep working on it. I knew Jack had everything in front of us that we needed to go win with, we just needed to figure out how to get it done. So when you have equipment that is capable of winning, if your teammates are doing it, if you’re doing it, whoever’s doing it, I think you’re always confident, but yeah, we feel better this year than we did last year at this time.”
WAS THERE CONTACT WITH HARVICK LATE IN THE RACE? “No, I don’t think there was. We were close but I don’t think we ever touched or rubbed at all. It was a great race. He was trying to win the race and then once I got along side of him he was doing everything he could to maintain second to get another run at the leader. It was a good, hard, clean race the whole time. We were all on old tires and were pushing and spinning the tires so it was a little bit of everything. It was a fun race. It’s fun when the track gets slick and you get on old tires and you got to drive it more with the gas and do different things, that always makes the racing fun.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON SPINS, GOES ALMOST TWO LAPS DOWN, AND RALLIES FOR A SIXTH-PLACE FINISH. IS THAT FRUSTRATING IN TERMS OF POINTS OR IS THAT NOT AS IMPORTANT NOW BECAUSE OF THE CHASE FORMAT? “I never though about the points at all today. I think we’re thinking about winning races. Our stuff has been so competitive all year. They’ve just given me cars to be contenders more weeks than not, and was I was just trying to think about to get another win. I’m very thankful that we won one and now we’ve won two, but that’s all I was really thinking about. We’re in a solid position in the points and yeah there’s a lot of racing left before the Chase, but we are in a solid position. We feel good about that. I don’t really even think about the points right now because honestly even if it’s 100 points it’s really only five. We’ll just try to run up front each week and try to lead laps and try to get as many points as we can and let ’em fall where they fall.”
ON THE RACE BEING FUN. “There were several reasons why I was so excited. It was the kind of race that you dream about to the finish. Any time you can win at this level it’s a great feeling, but when there’s two or three to go when I finally got the lead, everything just kind of went right for us. Even when it went wrong it ended up going right. It felt good to get that win. Plus, with the pit situation, I knew how mad Robbie was going to be with when caution with 20 to go and everybody blew my doors off. So I was happy that that all worked out.”
JACK ROUSH, continued – ROUSH FINISHED 1-2, CHILDRESS FINISHED 3-4, HENDRICK FINISHED 5-6. IS THIS DOMINANCE ON THE BIG TEAMS OR IS IT PARITY OR IS IT ENTERTAINMENT? “It’s both, I think. The thing that it takes to make this programs run is great sponsors that bring the money and then great people that will organize the cars so that they’ve got the speed and drivers that can drive it. Organizations that have got that mix the best right now is the larger teams. I don’t think there’s anything in sight that’s going to back to one man, one car and one team and the sort of thing that you might’ve looked at in a simpler time. But the big organizations have got the most understanding of what the problem is and are most able to deal with the changes that NASCAR brings with interpretations of rules as they come. NASCAR has done a great job on parity with templates now that hardly ever get mentioned.
These cars aero matched. The engines, they pay real close attention to, have got virtually the same speed. If you just figure out and have people that understand what the cars need and you figure out and you apply in numbers so then you’ll have a good result. And that of course is what Chrysler and other manufacturers have brought to the truck series with the way they’ve been able to standardize those cars between manufacturers. The Chevrolet teams, with having the most teams, have got several organizations do a nice job, but I feel kind of lonely with Ford. We’re trying to get Robert up to speed and get him going and get the Wood Brothers to do what they might. But it’s pretty lonely here. Yeah, the Gibbs organization, the Childress organization, the Hendrick organization and mine are able most days to do things that the smaller teams can’t and I think that’s life as it should be.”
ROBBIE REISER, continued – MATT SAID IN VICTORY LANE THAT ANYONE COULD’VE WON WITH THE EQUIPMENT HE WAS IN. “He’s a great race-car driver. That’s why I like working with him. He can say whatever he wants, but he does a great job driving these cars and I wouldn’t want anyone else driving the cars that I work on. I mean, he does an awesome job week-in and week-out and I enjoy it. Our race team, I can’t say enough about. This weekend, we struggled a little bit. Everybody stepped up to the plate and helped along. That’s the character of this team has always been. It’s championship caliber year-in and year-out. There’s a lot great guys on this team that work hard and take a lot of pride in the 17, too. A lot of guys put a lot of pride in it so I’m real proud of the job they did today.”
