Kenseth - Ford interview 2008-09-23

This Week in Ford Racing

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, rebounded from an unfortunate start to the Chase with a second-place finish at Dover last weekend. Kenseth, who won the 2003 championship, heads into this weekend's race at Kansas in 10th place in the standings.

TO BE GOOD IN THE CHASE, DO YOU HAVE TO BE GOOD ON THE MILE-AND-A-HALF TRACKS? THOSE TYPES OF TRACKS DOMINATE THE CHASE RACES. "I really think if you look at last year, especially, you had to be good at all the tracks; look what [Jeff] Gordon did there last year with like a fifth-place finish (average over the last 10 races) and didn't win the championship is unbelievable. So, that shows you you've got to be pretty good everywhere, really. I feel like our strong suits right now, probably, performance-wise are [Dover] and the mile-and- half tracks, and they're the ones for us that we've been struggling a bit at. You've got to finish good all your days. But, you've got to take advantage of your good places, too."

BECAUSE YOU'RE SUCH A CONSISTENT DRIVER AND DON'T RECORD A LARGE NUMBER OF WINS, HAS THE CHASE FORMAT AFFECTED YOU THE MOST? "Not really. I guess you could look at some years. There's other years that the Chase probably benefits us, and some years it doesn't. This year we wouldn't even be a contender to win or even have a shot if it wasn't for the Chase, which is going to be the case for most of years, except for one or two guys. So, I don't know. I think you've still got to be consistent in the final 10. Like I said, maybe last year was a little bit of an exception, if a fifth-place finish didn't win it, I don't think, so you had to be winning or right in the top three every time. But, the first year, [Tony] Stewart won it and he won races during the year but he didn't win any races in the Chase. So, still, you've got to be consistent and not have the things happen like we had happen [at New Hampshire]."

-credit: ford racing