NASCAR Cup
Pocono: Ford - Kenseth press conference
MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 3rd) YOUR RUN TODAY? "We had a good run. We had a decent car. It wasn't great, but it was real good on the long run. We had a lot of long runs when we needed them, so everybody did a ...
Published: Jun 9, 2003, 3:29 PM
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MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 3rd)
YOUR RUN TODAY?
"We had a good run. We had a decent car. It wasn't great, but it was real good on the long run. We had a lot of long runs when we needed them, so everybody did a good job. We had a well prepared car and the pit deal worked out where we got some track position. We had decent track position all day and was able to get a good finish from it."
CAN YOU COMMENT ON THE FUEL MILEAGE FOR YOUR CAR?
"I think it was as good as anybody else's. The first stop we ran three or four laps longer than everybody and we led a lap there, so because of our good fuel mileage and the way that whole deal worked out, we were gonna go to the end even if there wasn't a caution. I think Sterling and some of those guys might have had to pit twice and then we only had to stop one time to the end, so I think it was pretty good all day."
THOUGHTS ON THE RESTART WITH 4 TO GO?
"We just restarted and everybody had a little gap in between each other. With four to go and everybody on old tires and all bunched up it's tough to really get any passing done. We raced 490 miles before that and I think for that long run the best car was probably already in front and I don't think I could have done anything with either one of them. For a while I thought maybe I could catch the 6, but after he cleared lap traffic he seemed to get back away from me. So I felt like where we finished was about how good of a car we had. I felt like we had maybe a third or fourth-place car and finished third. I don't think we could have done anything with four to go."
HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING INTO MICHIGAN WITH THE POINTS LEAD?
"It feels great going to Michigan. It's a great race track. The last three or four times we've been there we've run really well. Roush cars seem to run pretty decent there all the time and it's fun to go there. Roush Industries is there and Jack is from that area, so everytime we go there I look forward to it. You can run three or four-wide in the corners and it's a great race track for these kind of cars to put on a good race. I think it's a great race for the fans, it's a really fun race for the drivers and I feel really good about where we're at today. But there's a lot of racing left to do and, as we all know, everything can change in one race so we've just got to keep working hard and do the best we can do every week."
HOW ARE YOU MAINTAINING YOUR CONSISTENCY?
"Compared to last year, two things. At the end of last year I made a couple of mistakes, but so far we haven't had any parts break - knock on wood - and we didn't get in a big wreck at Daytona and Talladega. Last year I was in three out of the four big wrecks at the speedways and got destroyed and got terrible finishes in all of them. At this time last year we had some parts that were already breaking, so, so far, so good in that area. The car has been running at the end of the race and I've been lucky enough not to tear anything up yet. To finish first you must first finish and our stuff has been running at the end and that's important."
YOU RAN OUT OF GAS THAT ONE TIME AROUND LAP 50. HOW DID YOU COME BACK FROM THAT?
"It was kind of a panic moment. I was mad because the clutch went bad and we've been having problems with the clutch all weekend and never really got it fixed. I was a little upset about that, but the track is so big we didn't lose a lap. The way it worked out, we got a caution shortly thereafter and we were getting such better mileage than a lot of the cars that we just decided to stay out. It got us on a different cycle, but it took us from 25th up to fifth and that put us back in position to be up front at the end."
WOULD THAT KIND OF PROBLEM LAST YEAR LED TO A 25TH-PLACE FINISH?
"I actually feel like this year we haven't been as lucky as we were last year. When we won Richmond in the fall, we had two flat tires and came back from that to win, so I felt like we had a lot of good luck last year, even when we were in bad situations. This year, I feel like so far we've had even luck. We had a few things go wrong that maybe cost us a top two or three and we finished seventh, eighth or ninth, but then we've had a couple things go right where maybe we had a little worse car than what we finished. I think it's been about average."
-ford racing-
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