NASCAR Cup
Bristol: Ford - Kenseth race press conference
Matt Kenseth - No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Taurus: "It was eventful, like it always is at Bristol. It was pretty good for us, we had a good car all day. Started in the back, went to the front once, went to the back again and got back to the front, ...
Published: Mar 27, 2003, 6:59 AM
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Matt Kenseth - No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Taurus:
"It was eventful, like it always is at Bristol. It was pretty good for us, we had a good car all day. Started in the back, went to the front once, went to the back again and got back to the front, so it was a good day. We got lucky and missed all the wrecks, and it was a good day for us."
ON GETTING CAUGHT IN THE PITS TO GO A LAP DOWN.
"Darn. What can you do? But it was very confusing. I knew there were still some cars out there, I thought we'd be at least two laps down. When you pit here under green, it's very, very confusing, there's so many cars all over the place, the track's so small and you have no idea what's going on. Once they told me I was one lap down and everybody was going to pit and I was going to be on the tail end, then I felt real good. I knew our car was as strong as anybody's and even if they had 10-lap better tires I felt like we could get, even if there was a medium run there and usually after cautions there's not, but even if we could run 10 or 20 laps, I felt good enough about staying in front of the leader, where I felt we could get our lap back and have shot at 'em. Once they said we were only one lap down, I felt okay about it."
WHAT COULD KURT BUSCH DOWN AT THE END?
"What really seemed to happen to us at the end is I got a run on Bobby and got by him and was trying to points race, he was trying to protect his position and I was trying to take it, and it bent my right-front fender really bad, and my car wouldn't turn for about 10 or 15 laps until it wore the metal away from the fender where the wheel would actually turn again, and Kurt got away. Before that, I felt like we would at least be able to get to him and have a run for him, but Kurt's an awesome driver. I've never seen as much natural talent as I've seen in Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle before, so when them guys get in front and they got the tires all pointed in the same direction, they're hard to beat."
FOUR ROUSH-BUILT ENGINES IN THE TOP-FIVE TODAY. HOW HARD WAS IT FOR EVERYONE AT ROUSH TO STAY CONSISTENT AND CALM THROUGH ALL THE PROBLEMS?
"The motor thing is nothing I can really do about it. They've done a great, huge improvement since 2001 to where they're at right now in a year and a half. They made tons of horsepower compared to what we used to have, and the durability's been pretty decent, too. But a lot of times when you improve horsepower that fast you're going to find other things that lived when you had less horsepower that maybe don't live now or whatever. I don't really know what all was going on. They had some issues with some runs with bad parts, and hopefully they got it all fixed. Like I say, I can't change my strategy or do anything different than what we do. We just got to go run and hope for the best."
-ford racing-
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