NASCAR Cup

This Week in Ford Racing - Matt Kenseth

This Week in Ford Racing January 28, 2003 Roush Racing visit Matt Kenseth interview Roush Racing had an outstanding year in 2002 with 10 wins and three drivers among the top 10 in the final NASCAR Winston Cup point standings. The four ...

Edited: Jan 31, 2003, 12:13 AM

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This Week in Ford Racing
January 28, 2003
Roush Racing visit

Matt Kenseth interview

Roush Racing had an outstanding year in 2002 with 10 wins and three drivers among the top 10 in the final NASCAR Winston Cup point standings. The four returning Roush drivers from last season - Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch, Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth - spoke about the coming year during last week's Charlotte media tour.

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus:

CARBON MONOXIDE HAS BECOME AN ISSUE. TO WHAT EXTENT HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED PROBLEMS?

"I don't know. I've never really been tested for how much carbon monoxide I have in my system. There are sometimes after races where you don't feel good or you've got a headache at night, but whether that's from sitting in the same place or the noise or carbon monoxide or heat, I don't have the answer for that."

HOW AWARE ARE YOU OF THE PROBLEM?

"Since we've started racing we've always tried to be as smart as we could about getting the inside of the car sealed up and getting the exhaust to dump somewhere away from the vents that come into your car. Since we've started we've been aware of it and try to keep as much carbon monoxide out of the car as we can. It's just common sense."

THE SCHEDULE IS SOMETHING ELSE BEING TALKED ABOUT. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SOME TRADITIONAL PLACES POSSIBLY LOSING A DATE?

"I guess it's just the way it is. You hate to lose a date at some place that you might really like to race at. If they were gonna take some dates away, I wish they'd call me so I could tell them which tracks I'd have no problem with (laughing). There are some tracks close to home that we've been going to for a lot of years and you'd hate to see them go away."

THERE HASN'T BEEN A LOT OF YELLING DURING THE PRE-SEASON. ARE THERE MORE UNKNOWNS GOING INTO THIS YEAR?

"Yeah. We haven't really started racing yet. You're not gonna hear much of that or see much of that until we at least get to Daytona and try to qualify. Hopefully, all of the manufacturers are pretty close so we don't have to hear that complaining and lobbying and politicking like we have every other year. It would be nice if everybody was even and everybody could just go work on their cars and not have to worry about Dodge getting an extra half-inch kickout or Chevy getting an extra quarter-inch of spoiler or Ford getting bigger fenders. Hopefully, we can go without that this year and just worry about our race cars. That would be a lot of fun."

IS THE RACE FOR THE TITLE MORE WIDE-OPEN THIS YEAR?

"You never know until we get racing, really. I think it's gonna make everybody a lot more even, especially at all the downforce tracks. I think you're going to have the cars even closer together at places like that than we had last year."

YOU WON THE MOST RACES, BUT CONSISTENCY WAS A PROBLEM. IS THAT THE KEY?

"Yeah, hopefully we can be more consistent, but it would be nice if we can have our same level of performance. My first and foremost concern is to be as competitive as we were last year. If we can be as competitive as we were last year and have little bit more consistency with fewer parts failures, hopefully, we'll have a chance of finishing better in the points."

Jeff Burton
Mark Martin
Kurt Busch

-ford-

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