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Winner
Matt Kenseth
Photo
Credit: Autostock/Ford |
JUSTIN, TX (April 8, 2002) -- Matt Kenseth and the DEWALT
Power Tools Ford team have done it again. For the second time
this year, Kenseth, crew chief Robbie Reiser and the No. 17
team found victory lane. It was only after Kenseth passed
every car in the field that he cruised to a win in the
Samsung/Radioshack 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in front of
over 180,000 people on Monday.
Jeff Gordon had his best result all year with a second place
finish and Mark martin was third.
The team unloaded the No. 17 car on Friday ready to race.
Kenseth went out onto the newly paved track for practice, but
was only able to make five laps before the engine failed. The
team had no choice but to replace the motor and NASCAR's one
engine rule took its toll on the DEWALT team for the third
time this season. The No. 17 would have to start in the back
of the pack - regardless of the outcome of qualifying-since
they changed the motor.
Kenseth and the team decided to qualify the car anyway, but it
was only good for 31st on the speed charts. Practice on
Saturday was canceled because of rain and thunderstorms.
Luckily, Kenseth did compete in the Busch Series event on
Saturday, and was a contender for a win, until rain halted the
event just over halfway through the race.
Rain and severe weather washed out any opportunity to run the
race as scheduled on Sunday. Weather predictions for Monday
were much better, and the race was postponed.
Race setups and conditions were going to be major players in
the guessing game for most teams - especially for those who
did not test at Texas. Due to lack of practice during the
weekend, NASCAR decided to allow for a competition caution on
lap 36, to allow teams to make adjustments on the cars.
Kenseth and Reiser were not too worried, because they brought
same car they raced in Atlanta, and the two tracks are
similar.
When the Samsung/Radioshack 500 started, Matt had to drop back
to the 42nd position. He was apprehensive about starting so
far back in the field, because it was going to be hard to pass
with only one groove on the track.
"I was real worried about the ability to pass here in Texas"
said Kenseth. "I just knew with the new surface it was going
to be fast, and hard to move up. I'm glad I was not right
about that, because the track got really wide after a while. I
literally passed everyone to get to the front."
Early on, Kenseth proved his passing theory was not true,
because when the first caution flag flew he had already
muscled his way into the 21st position. At that point the car
was a bit tight. On the pit stop the team made an air pressure
and track bar adjustment to loosen up the car, and sent
Kenseth back out onto the track in 15th position. Then Kenseth
told Reiser, "This is one good handling race car. We just need
to make a few more adjustments and then we can see what we've
got to contend with."
As the green flag laps added up on the score board in the
500-mile event, Kenseth had moved up to sixth place. The team
pitted during the green flag on lap 102. They decided to pull
a spring rubber out of the right front of the car, and it cost
them track position. Kenseth and Reiser decided it was the
right move to make, and the car was handling so well, that
they would be able to get it back since they were still in the
top 15.
It was not long after the pit stop that Kenseth again informed
the team the car was going to be good once the tires got built
up and the race stayed green for a while.
On lap 124 Kenseth said the car had an 'areo push' when he got
behind a certain car. An areo push usually throws off the
balance in a race car and makes it hard to drive. Once Kenseth
passed the car, he picked up where he left off - moving toward
the front of the field.
The team continued to make air pressure adjustments on the car
during pit stops and soon Kenseth raced his way into the top
10. Green flag pit stops began again on lap 225. Kenseth was
only a few laps away from making a stop of his own when a
caution came out leaving just a few cars on the lead lap.
Kenseth came into the pits on lap 242 for four tires in
second, and left with the lead.
Kenseth then pulled away to an impressive 6.5 second lead over
the No. 20 car of Tony Stewart. Unfortunately, he would not be
able to make it the rest of the race on fuel and would have to
stop with 25 laps to go.
On lap 310, Kenseth caught a break, as the No. 97 car of Kurt
Busch spun on the track bringing out a caution. Kenseth came
into the pits and took two tires and enough fuel to go the
duration of the event. He left the pits with the lead and
never looked back.
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Kenseth
pits
Photo: Autostock/Ford |
Kenseth lead the field three times, for a total of 84 laps and
went on to win for the third time in his career, and for the
second time this season. The car, chassis number 6, is the
same car Kenseth won the Coca Cola 600 with at Lowe's Motor
Speedway in May of 2000.
"That was awesome," said Kenseth from victory lane. "I was so
much better when I could get out front, and run by myself. All
day we had a car that handled very well, and the guys did a
good job in the pits, getting me out front when it counted.
The track changed a lot throughout the day, and we were able
to keep up with the adjustments and be there at the end.
"Our cars have been handing much better this year, and we have
been able to be consistent. There is still room for
improvement though. When a team has won two out of seven
races, and still has room for improvement, that is a good
thing.
"We were able to pass a lot of cars today, and the track got
really wide. I came here thinking it was going to be a one
lane track, but it turned out a lot different. Its really a
great track.
"I'm proud to give DEWALT their second win of the year, and
Roush Racing their third. Although its too early to talk about
points, if we keep running like this, we might be in this
position in the fall."
"It's about the people," said Robbie Reiser. "The guys at the
shop who put these great cars together for us are the best.
Although its way too early to talk about the points, we just
focus on each race one at a time. Who knows, if we can keep
our heads in it, we might be talking about this stuff in New
York. Matt is a helluva race car driver, and I am really proud
of this team today."
Race Results
Interview
MATT KENSETH --17-- DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 1st)
-- PRESS CONFERENCE -- WHAT ABOUT YOUR RUN? "Yeah, it was a
great run. It's a great facility out here. We were all worried
about the track being a one-groove track and it really wasn't
today, the outside groove came in real quick, which I never
dreamed it would have. You could run side-by-side. It was a
great race track and we were able to start from the back and
make our way to the front. I was real concerned about that --
having to start in the back by having a chance to get back to
the front -- but we were able to do it and we had our car
really adjustable. We were able to keep up with the changing
track conditions today and that was the key." WHAT WAS THE
KEY? "Well, our very first run before the mandatory caution,
we were able to run somewhere between 15th and 18th, something
like that, and it wasn't that bad to pass. But later in the
race, once I got up to the top 10 it was real difficult for me
to pass and I had a hard time getting back past those people.
At the end of the race, it was definitely a track position
thing. If you could be in the front, you could run faster but,
on the other hand, we did have a fast car and we could catch
all of the people in front of us -- we were just having a hard
time passing them." ANY QUESTION ABOUT TWO TIRES ON THE LAST
STOP? "I think they were voting down there. I wanted to get
two. We always go the safe way. Our rookie year, we lost
California that way. We led all day, led the most laps, and I
got four at the end and got beat by two tires so I wanted to
go for it once. I knew if we got four, I knew three or four of
those guys were gonna take two tires, and if we got behind
them I knew we weren't gonna pass them and win the race. But
if we had two, at least we were gonna have a shot of getting
away a little bit on the start and then at least then it would
be my race to lose, so I wanted to be out front and see what
we could do out there."
JACK ROUSH, Car Owner --17-- DEWALT Power Tools Taurus -- CAN
YOU REVEAL THE VOTE AND DID YOUR VOTE OVERRULE? "No, my vote
doesn't count for anything during the race -- it's Robbie and
Matt deciding what they want. I'll maybe write Robbie some
notes and say, 'I see this or I see that,' but he has the
final word and there's no recourse or no second-guessing.
Robbie and Matt had their agenda worked out in terms of what
they wanted to do. They had figured out how to keep the car
dancing and to be in a position to win. There were a couple of
different ways they could have won. If it had stayed green,
they were in a position where they needed very little gas, and
they were probably gonna take on two tires even with very
little gas, but that was the one bit of strategy that Robbie
had to sort out, it seemed by me. I was down there making sure
he understood how little gas he needed, so he didn't make his
decision on two tires thinking that it wouldn't cost him a
penalty. With 25 laps to go or whatever it was gonna be -- I
think it was 25-28 when they planned on coming in -- three
seconds more on pit road would have gotten them two tires and
I'm pretty sure that was Robbie was gonna do. At that point,
they were three or four seconds in front, so he would have
maintained that assuming they had a good pit stop -- through
the stop. If the two tires had been better, and I think they
would have than no tires -- then 25 laps wouldn't have been a
lot for two tires to have made up three seconds, so I'm pretty
sure that would have worked."
KENSETH CONTINUED -- WHAT ABOUT WHEN JEFF WAS BEHIND YOU? "I
was more worried about it on cold tires. I figured those guys
got two tires because I saw how fast they came out of the
pits, so I knew they had two and we were on equal tires. But I
was worried about my restart and I was worried about the first
two laps when they had the maximum grip -- about getting
passed. I thought once the tires got warm, if I could get a
little cushion in between us, I felt pretty good about it. It
was tough to be behind somebody today and if I could keep on
the bottom and keep the thing from pushing up off the corner,
then I thought I'd have a shot at it. So, as long as he didn't
get underneath me the first few laps I felt pretty good about
it."
ROBBIE REISER, Crew Chief --17-- DEWALT Power Tools Taurus --
WHAT ABOUT THE LAST PIT STOP? "It was pretty much a group
decision. I said, 'Do you think we should put four on?' And
they all shook their head and said, 'No, two' so they
overruled the deal and we took two."
ROUSH CONTINUED -- YOU HAVE A NEW HAT. "This is a hat even I
could like. I didn't have a 10-gallon genuine Texas hat, so
now I've got one. The whole crew got one as well, so this is a
real special moment to come to Texas and be able to win our
third race and Robbie and Matt's second race this year. This
is a real turnaround for us. We're really have a good time
with it right now."
KENSETH CONTINUED -- WHAT ABOUT YOUR COMMUNICATION? "The
biggest thing between Robbie and I is we have a lot of trust
in each other. When he tells me he does something I trust that
at least most of the time he does it and he trusts me when I
tell him something, he kind of knows what I need and what I
want. One time during the race we only had four laps on a set
of tires and I told him I had a little vibration and he
trusted that, so we came in and did the safe thing and changed
tires. We lost a few spots, but we did that. We've had a great
relationship. We've been working together since '97 and he's
been my only crew chief ever for Winston Cup or the Busch
Series, so we've obviously had a good time together."
REISER CONTINUED -- ON RELATIONSHIP WITH MATT. "Matt wrecked a
lot of equipment in front of me all the time and I always had
to drive through it and that made me mad most of the time
(laughing). No, we've had a really good relationship. Matt is
a hell of a race car driver. He's done a great job for us and
he's a pleasure to work with and I enjoy working with him a
lot because he's got the talent and he knows what he's doing
most of the time. Once in a while I've got to straighten him
out, but, no, he does a really good job -- not just as a
driver but he's a real good friend of mine. We do a lot more
than just racing cars together. With our Busch team and all
the things we've been through, we've been through a lot of
things over the last two years. Plus, when we raced short
tracks we threw some things too, so it's a pretty neat deal."
ROUSH CONTINUED -- WHAT ABOUT ALL FOUR TEAMS SO FAR? "The
downside of four teams is that only one of them can win, so
I'm really greedy. On a day like today I'm just devastated
that we didn't have a better day with the 99 and that Kurt ran
over three pieces of trash on the race track somewhere along
the way and had three flat tires that gave him trouble. Kurt
had a really neutral car that was balanced real nice and he
just kept coming down pit road, so those things will be
bothering me as much or more than the joy I feel for winning
this race. We're just greatly relieved to have been able to
deliver back to DEWALT and Pfizer and Rubbermaid and Citgo the
kind of exposure that they counted on from us when they made
their investment in sponsorship. For the most part, we haven't
had the broken parts and we haven't had the wrecks and we
haven't had the cautions come out at exactly the wrong time."
ROUSH CONTINUED -- "When we've had an opportunity to win a
race this year, we've been able to capitalize on it, and when
we haven't been good enough we haven't. Boy, I've had years
when you'd be good enough numerous times and you just couldn't
capitalize on it for something out of your control. These are
the happy days. These are the happy times as the German U-boat
guys said in '39 and '40 when we were really having things go
our way. I'm sitting some of this aside, putting it in the
bank for when the bad stuff happens and we can't win, even
though we were as good as we were today."
KENSETH CONTINUED -- THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LAST YEAR AND THIS
YEAR? "Talking about circumstances at the end of the race, a
lot of it isn't necessarily something we always do right or
always do wrong, a lot of it is just circumstances and luck.
One thing I can tell you is our cars have handled much, much
better than they did last year. Last year we were driving
20th-place cars most of the time and no matter what
circumstances, yeah, you put in front with a 20th-place car
and I'm still not gonna win the race. So, the car has got to
be fast and you've got to have everything going your way.
Everything worked out for us. It worked out good when Rusty
and Tony were in front of me and there was a caution shortly
after they pitted -- I think 10 or 12 laps and we were running
third -- and they came in and pitted and I decided to stay
out. That was a big key in us winning the race, I think,
because it got me out front and it showed me and it showed
Robbie on the stopwatch how fast that we could be if we were
out front. I think that probably changed our strategy once we
were out front and saw how good our car could really be. Then
we just had to figure out how to keep it there." WAS CLEAN AIR
THAT MUCH BETTER TODAY? "It was definitely a lot better than
being behind, for sure, especially when you got up to the
front cars. But we were able to pass a lot of cars and the
track got pretty wide, but you've got to remember that we're
almost running 200 miles and hour and these cars are very
dependent on aerodynamics to make them work. A lot of times I
could be running four times faster than a car and catch them
and get three car lengths behind them and couldn't get any
closer to them. I'd slow down four-tenths just because I
couldn't get the thing turned to go underneath him, so it
definitely was a big advantage to be out front, but you still
had to have your car handling right. If your car wasn't
turning and doing the things you wanted, it wouldn't have
mattered as much, but the place to be was definitely up
front." WHAT ABOUT AERO PUSH? "Basically, when we're running a
straight line, say we have 300 pounds of downforce in the
front and 600 in the back, when you get behind somebody it
takes all of that downforce off the front. Basically, you've
got 300 pounds of pressure that are pushing on your front
tires and keeping your front tires turning and on the ground.
When you get behind somebody, you take all that pressure off
the front tires, but it doesn't take all that off the rear
tires. The rear still has the downforce, but it takes all the
downforce off the front and it makes the steering wheel really
light and doesn't hold the tires to the ground."
REISER CONTINUED -- ON AERO PUSH. "That pretty much explains
it, but it just changes the balance of the car. We do a lot
with springs and shocks and front valances and stuff like that
to try to get the car to turn. That's kind of why last season
we struggled a little bit. We worked on it and we've got that
part of it better and our cars are able to run in traffic a
lot better this year."
ROUSH CONTINUED -- ARE WIND TUNNELS IMPORTANT TO MULTI-CAR
TEAMS? "If you have a really good formula and a really good
format, all you need to do is to figure out how to replicate
it so everybody within the group that's sharing the
information has the same thing. Mark and Kurt and Matt, pretty
much, have agreed on what they wanted for an aero balance in
the car.
ROUSH CONTINUED -- "Jeff Burton has run something a little bit
different and that worked for him great at the end of last
year, but we're certainly showing the way for Jeff from the
way Mark and Kurt and Matt are running this year. The one
thing about aero push that I think might be most interesting
to the media is that it provides the basis for great
contention. Whoever is not doing real well is sure they've got
the worst problem and, of course, I guess the only people that
can really evaluate who has the worse problem are the guys
sitting behind the steering wheel. The rest of us just watch
it and say, 'Boy, if I had more there, we'd be better,' but
it's got to be really hard to drive these cars. The big round
cars that want to make all this lift, it's got to be really
hard to drive them when they lose that layer of laminer air
that stands close to the ground, that they're able to run
their front ends into and to build the downforce. My hat goes
off to them to be able to run off into the corner at 200 miles
an hour or 190 miles an hour places like here and Indy and
Atlanta, where you really rely on every nut and bolt -- the
tires -- everything that's in the cars in front of you to not
come apart so that you can get around there. They're really
courageous. My hat's off to all the drivers."
KENSETH CONTINUED -- WHAT WERE YOU THINKING BEFORE PITTING?
"We were gonna pit with about 25 to go or something like that.
If we would have come down pit road and the caution would have
come out, that would have been a big problem for us. If it
would have gone green to the end, I felt real good about where
we were at. I think we had almost a six second lead, which is
pretty big. The DEWALT over-the-wall guys have been doing a
great job of getting me out of the pits fast. I know Robbie
had two tires planned there, so I don't think anybody could
have beat us as far as getting ahead of us with strategy or
taking gas only or anything like that. We were still gonna
have a lead once everybody pitted because everybody was gonna
have to pit sooner or later. I think we had maybe seven or
eight laps -- before some of the other cars had to pit -- we
had to pit because someone pitted after us, so I think we
would have been fine if it had gone green." IS PRACTICE
OVERRATED? "No, but it worked out good for us. I think when
you can practice a little bit and your car is real fast, then
you wish there wouldn't be practice so everybody doesn't have
time to figure out their cars. Really, we kind of decided on
our own what we wanted to put in the car and it was almost
identical to what we ran in our Busch Series car yesterday,
which was really, really fast. We kind of lost that race
because of circumstances, we feel like, but we had a real fast
car there too and we put that basic setup in our Winston Cup
car and worked around that and it was real fast. We did that
and took some of our knowledge from what we ran in Atlanta in
the spring, so we brought the same exact car back here and the
tracks are pretty similar." YOU HAD TO GO TO THE BACK OF THE
FIELD, WHERE DID YOU START? "What's the difference? We changed
the engine before qualifying so we pulled in the back. I don't
know, Robby Gordon might have been behind me. I guess our
official starting position is 31st, but I didn't see anything
behind me so if we weren't last we were second-to-last." WHAT
WERE YOU THINKING AT THE START OF THE RACE? "I was pretty
nervous about it because I didn't know how wide the track was
gonna get or how easy or hard it was gonna be to pass. Like I
said, the first tire run before the mandatory caution we were
able to pass a whole bunch of cars. I think we were 15th when
we came out of the pits after our very first pit stop, so we
made up most of the ground I was worried about before that,
then I knew we were in a pretty decent position to go from
there. So it worried me before the race started, but after we
got up through there I felt like we had a car that was gonna
be pretty competitive. But when you don't run up front and
lead all day, you're never really sure that it's gonna be a
winner."
KENSETH CONTINUED -- DID YOU TEST HERE AND WHAT ARE YOUR
GOALS? "No, we didn't test here. Jeff Burton tested here, so
we looked at a lot of his test data. I think we're all
goal-setters. Robbie is probably more a goal-setter than me,
but his goals are really, really easy -- win every week and
win the championship -- those are his goals so his are really
easy to figure out. You have to have goals. My main goal going
into the year was just to be more competitive -- to run up
front. Obviously, you want to win every week, but we wanted to
win more races, but basically put ourselves in position to win
races. Last year, we very seldom put ourselves in a position
to win, so you have to put yourself in that position to win
several time to win races, I feel like. If you're up there
running with the leaders and you're running up in the top five
and you've got competitive cars, you're gonna win your share
of races, so that was my goal." WHAT ABOUT NOW? "I just feel
like we have more work to do, I think that we have good cars
but I don't think we can rest and say as a team that we've won
three out of seven races so we're good enough and can leave
everything alone. I still think we need to work on stuff and
we need to take every item that's in our race cars and make
them the best we can make them. We had a great race car today,
but I felt like there was still room for improvement where we
could have been even stronger. So that's a great feeling. When
you can win a race and know that you still have room to make
your cars better, that's a wonderful thing." CAN YOU TALK
ABOUT CLEAN RACING? "First of all, the track is so wide you
don't need to run into everybody to pass them and, second of
all, I don't think you'd want to run into anybody because
you're going so fast it would mess up your own car besides
wrecking him. These type of tracks aren't like that. If you're
fast enough to get right up to his back bumper, you're gonna
be fast enough to pass him. So, if you can get close enough to
hit him, you're fast enough to pass him without hitting him.
If you can get to him, it's not a problem to pass but
sometimes it's hard to get right up to him."
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