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11th
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Defying the best Las Vegas Motor Speedway odds, Matt Kenseth on older tires held off Kasey Kahne on fresher ones to get his first victory with a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
The icing on the cake was it was his own birthday present to himself as the Wisconsin native drove to his 25th Sprint Cup victory in his third race for JGR.
"I was real nervous all day. (Kahne) had the best car. I was getting too tight and killing the right front, but I just had to stay in front of him,” said the race winner.
Jason Ratliff, Kenseth's crew chief said “well, three weeks in, I mean, I knew this day would come, but to do it just in our third race is really special obviously. The hard work that these guys have put in over the winter, we've just got a great group here, and we've got Matt and we're going to win a lot of races, I think. He'll probably get mad at me for saying that because he doesn't like that. But anyway, like I said, I knew that we would get to victory lane at some point, and to do it this early in the season is great, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.”
The penultimate pit stop, at the mile-and-a-half oval, set up the challenge to Kenseth. With 43 laps to go, in the 267-lapper Kenseth took fuel only. Kahne's Chevy took two right-side tires and fuel. Pit stops wouldn't be an issue, but, another restart gave an opportunity to Kahne but he couldn't close the deal.
“I felt really confident, that when I got to him I'd be able to do that again like I had raced with Kyle (Busch) and Jimmie (Johnson) earlier in the race,” said Kahne. “And when I got to Matt I couldn't do it, so I was trying to brake in and mess with anything that I could, lift early, lift late, try it all, and just couldn't find a way past him. So he just did a really good job of keeping his momentum up, keeping his speed. He was cutting across me off the corner. We were kind of tight, loose, and he just put up a great battle and pulled it off on told tires, did a good job.”
Despite having his third straight top-four finish third place Brad Keselowski wasn't pleased. “It is a different perspective because I'm not happy with top 5s; I want to win. You know, the last three weeks, really the last two weeks, and I'm sure when I get home tonight I'm going to go home and throw around some pillows and punch some things because we've had a shot at winning all three races and come up short, whether it's circumstances or bad luck or today just a little bit of execution.”
As to the winning strategy there was no real debate between driver and crew chief.
Kenseth explained “Honestly, I was grinning inside as I was leaving pit road. All I said on the track, I was like ‑‑ I knew we had to pit, I was like, try to keep me up front if you can. I didn't say anything when he came on pit road and said that we only needed fuel. I had him counting under his breath. I thought oh, I thought he was filling it up. I left pit road, and I was like, ‘that's what you like.'"
Ratliff agreed “Well, we were talking about it, my two engineers and myself, we were like, okay, how much fuel do we need? We're going to pick up about a little over a second if we don't take tires, or we can take right side tires if there's going to be some more cautions later in the race that's probably going to be the right call. And then when Matt came on the radio ‑‑ I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it, he said, ‘man, just keep me up front', I said, ‘okay, game on.'”
That and some great driving put Kenseth back in Victory Lane.
The icing on the cake was it was his own birthday present to himself as the Wisconsin native drove to his 25th Sprint Cup victory in his third race for JGR.
"I was real nervous all day. (Kahne) had the best car. I was getting too tight and killing the right front, but I just had to stay in front of him,” said the race winner.
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| Matt Kenseth holding off Kasey Kahne. (Photo: NASCAR) |
Jason Ratliff, Kenseth's crew chief said “well, three weeks in, I mean, I knew this day would come, but to do it just in our third race is really special obviously. The hard work that these guys have put in over the winter, we've just got a great group here, and we've got Matt and we're going to win a lot of races, I think. He'll probably get mad at me for saying that because he doesn't like that. But anyway, like I said, I knew that we would get to victory lane at some point, and to do it this early in the season is great, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.”
The penultimate pit stop, at the mile-and-a-half oval, set up the challenge to Kenseth. With 43 laps to go, in the 267-lapper Kenseth took fuel only. Kahne's Chevy took two right-side tires and fuel. Pit stops wouldn't be an issue, but, another restart gave an opportunity to Kahne but he couldn't close the deal.
“I felt really confident, that when I got to him I'd be able to do that again like I had raced with Kyle (Busch) and Jimmie (Johnson) earlier in the race,” said Kahne. “And when I got to Matt I couldn't do it, so I was trying to brake in and mess with anything that I could, lift early, lift late, try it all, and just couldn't find a way past him. So he just did a really good job of keeping his momentum up, keeping his speed. He was cutting across me off the corner. We were kind of tight, loose, and he just put up a great battle and pulled it off on told tires, did a good job.”
Despite having his third straight top-four finish third place Brad Keselowski wasn't pleased. “It is a different perspective because I'm not happy with top 5s; I want to win. You know, the last three weeks, really the last two weeks, and I'm sure when I get home tonight I'm going to go home and throw around some pillows and punch some things because we've had a shot at winning all three races and come up short, whether it's circumstances or bad luck or today just a little bit of execution.”
 |
| Photo: NASCAR |
As to the winning strategy there was no real debate between driver and crew chief.
Kenseth explained “Honestly, I was grinning inside as I was leaving pit road. All I said on the track, I was like ‑‑ I knew we had to pit, I was like, try to keep me up front if you can. I didn't say anything when he came on pit road and said that we only needed fuel. I had him counting under his breath. I thought oh, I thought he was filling it up. I left pit road, and I was like, ‘that's what you like.'"
Ratliff agreed “Well, we were talking about it, my two engineers and myself, we were like, okay, how much fuel do we need? We're going to pick up about a little over a second if we don't take tires, or we can take right side tires if there's going to be some more cautions later in the race that's probably going to be the right call. And then when Matt came on the radio ‑‑ I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it, he said, ‘man, just keep me up front', I said, ‘okay, game on.'”
That and some great driving put Kenseth back in Victory Lane.