October 12, 2005

By Rebecca Gladden

With 30 races down and just six to go in the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup season, the Daytona 500 seems like a distant memory.

Matt Kenseth

It was after the February race in Daytona that I penned a column entitled, "For Matt Kenseth, Only Way To Go Is Up." The article explored Kenseth's heartbreaking 42nd-place finish in the race and how it might affect his prospects for the rest of 2005.

Kenseth's day had ended abruptly at Daytona with a catastrophic engine failure after just 34 laps. "It's the best car I've ever had for the Daytona 500," he said at the time, "and I really thought we could have been a contender."

While admitting that he was "home in time to see the final 20 laps on television," Kenseth tried to put an optimistic spin on his profoundly disappointing Daytona run: "We've only got one way to go after Daytona," he remarked.

True, but it's unlikely that even Kenseth could have predicted just how difficult an uphill climb lay ahead for the 17 team.

In the season's first 14 races from Daytona through Pocono, Kenseth had three DNF's, five finishes of 30th or worse, and just two top-10's, with an average finish of 22.8. It seemed like his Roush teammates were safely on one side of a treacherous river, while the DeWalt team was caught in the rapids, still trying to find the oars for their boat.

After Pocono, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Mark Martin were in the top-5 in points and Kurt Busch was within striking distance at 11th. Kenseth, on the other hand, was a distant 24th in the standings, the last of the five Roush drivers, 700 points out of first and seemingly far-removed from any hope of making the Chase.

But in the mid-portion of the season, during the 12-race span from Michigan to Richmond, the DeWalt team effected a remarkable turnaround. They posted nine top-10 finishes including a win at Bristol in late August, climbed to 8th in the points, and shocked almost everyone by qualifying for the Chase for the Championship - leading one writer to refer to Kenseth as this year's "Comeback Kid."

After the Richmond race, Kenseth credited teamwork and better-performing cars for the incredible rebound: "I'm relieved, but more than relieved I'm excited," exclaimed the normally-stoic Kenseth. "I'm excited for this whole DeWalt team. They did such a great job on pit road. They're the reason why we're here. We were way behind here a few months ago and they just kept digging and giving me better race cars. They were just killing everybody on pit road. It was awesome on pit road and they put us in position. I'm real excited, because I feel like we've got some momentum. We're running really well. We didn't just sneak in. We still ran second tonight and had a good run. I really think that we can be a threat down the stretch."

Kenseth had considered the prospect of missing the Chase cutoff and was prepared to deal with that outcome: "No matter what, I was going to walk away today happy and proud of my guys, because we made up 300-and-some-odd points on 10th place in the last couple months, and that's awesome, even if we wouldn't have made it. So either way, I was going to be real proud of the effort they put forth."

While relishing the moment and the comeback, Kenseth reflected on the early-season struggles: "It really works in cycles," he explained. "You have up and down days and up and down years. It goes like that for awhile, and right now I'm really enjoying this."

Now four races into the Chase, Kenseth has posted three top-5's, although tire trouble at Dover resulted in a 35th-place finish - his one "mulligan" thus far in the post-season. Currently 8th in the standings, 116 points behind leader Tony Stewart, Kenseth remains philosophic about the remaining six races: "The encouraging part for me is that we've been running a lot better. We've had three top-5's in the Chase. We were running in the top-5 at Dover at the end when we blew our second tire. We've had some problems and still been able to finish good, so even though we're a ways behind those other guys, they haven't had any problems yet.

"We're going to some tracks like Charlotte and stuff that is kind of an unknown, and I feel good about our performance. I just feel like if you can run in the top-5 and even the top-10 every week, you're going to be there at the end."

If past performance is any indication, look for Matt Kenseth and the 17 team to be contenders 'till the very end.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN. Although we may not always agree with what is said, we do feel it's our duty to give a voice to those who have something relevant to say about the sport of auto racing.