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NASCAR Cup Watkins Glen

Kenseth surprises himself again

Matt Kenseth has done something he once thought near-impossible over the last two weeks: win a race on fuel mileage and scoring a top five finish at Watkins Glen.

Jim Utter

Edited: Aug 10, 2015, 2:00 AM

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Matt Kenseth, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyta

In the last two weeks Matt Kenseth has been exorcising many of his racing demons.

Prior to last weekend’s Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway, Kenseth had never won a fuel-mileage race nor won on the 2.5-mile triangular-shaped track. He accomplished both in the same day in winning the Windows 10 400.

Sunday, Kenseth finished fourth – and more importantly remained in contention for the win – at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International, his first top-five finish in 16 starts on the road course. His previous best finish was eighth, which he earned in 2003 and 2012. He also surprised teammate Kyle Busch with his ability to nurse the fuel to the end.

Success on road courses has ranked about as high as fuel-mileage races and visits to Pocono for Kenseth during his NASCAR career.

Overachieving

“We ran pretty good with just the way the fuel strategy worked out, we had to save a lot battling with Kevin (Harvick). I thought (Joey Logano) and (Kyle Busch) were going to go right by me and we actually had a lot of car left,” Kenseth said.

Kenseth said that two weeks he’s felt like an “overachiever” with the performances at Pocono and the Glen.

“I messed up in qualifying here. We had a much better car in qualifying and I just made a big mistake,” he said. “In the race, it’s so hard to pass and hard to get your car to do what you want.

“Once we had a chance to get up front, I thought we had a pretty competitive car.”

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