Kenseth returns with no expectations
Matt Kenseth didn’t hesitate when asked what he missed most while sitting out the first 11 weeks of the NASCAR season.
“The fans and the competition,” Kenseth said Friday at Kansas Speedway, where he will make his first start of the season Saturday night in the KC Masterpiece 400.
“I started racing on Friday and Saturday nights with a couple hundred people in the stands … in any professional sport, that’s the one constant. You love to compete no matter what level.”
Kenseth, the Wisconsin driver who has been idle since his release by Joe Gibbs Racing after the 2017 season, was tapped on April 25 by his original
team, Roush Fenway Racing, to share the No. 6 Ford with underperforming Trevor Bayne.
He will run a minimum of eight races: Kansas, the All-Star Race, CocaCola 600, Pocono and Michigan consecutively and Indianapolis, Phoenix and Homestead later in the year.
Kenseth, the 2003 Cup champion for Roush, couldn’t have picked a better place to start than Kansas, where he is a two-time winner and has led more laps, 774 in 24 starts, than any driver.
“I don’t have any expectations necessarily this weekend,” said Kenseth, 46. “I will continue to adjust once we get through this weekend. I came in with an open mind, and will take it one practice at a time, one session at a time.
“I feel good about the direction Roush Fenway Racing has taken the last couple of years. The Fords have been competitive, the 17 (of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) has shown a lot speed on and off. You don’t see it in all the finishes, but certainly they have been better.”
Kenseth was among six drivers who did not make a qualifying attempt Friday evening because of problems getting through inspection.
Kenseth’s 2012 win at Kansas was his last for Roush (and the last time a Roush driver won on a 1.5-mile track), and he won his next Kansas start in 2013 for Gibbs. But Kenseth can’t erase the memories of his last start at Kansas when he was parked late in the race when his JGR crew had too many men on pit road. A 32nd–place finish eliminated him from the playoffs.
Kenseth, whose 39 wins are tied for 20th all-time, said he hasn’t set any goals once this trial with RFR comes to an end.
“Professionally, I don’t know if I have a long-term goal or have anything to prove to anybody,” Kenseth said. “Short-term, I hope to help the organization. That’s why Jack (Roush) and I have decided to do this, to get the performance up.”
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup qualifying: Kevin Harvick had to race onto the track after finally passing through inspection just as the first round of qualifying began. By the time things were settled, Harvick had raced his way to his fourth Kansas pole.
Fresh off his fourth win of the season last week at Dover, Harvick turned a best lap of 188.811 mph to easily claim the top starting spot. Ryan Blaney was a distant second in 187.825 mph, with Kyle Busch, Aric Almirola and Chase Elliott rounding out the top five.
“It really shows the experience of the race team. We’re going on our fifth year together and you look at how calm everybody stayed,” Harvick said of inspection. “That’s really what makes us tick week after week, and the guys are performing at a high level.”
Camping World Truck Series: A week after crashing while going for the victory, Noah Gragson dominated at Kansas Speedway for his first victory this year and second in the series.
Gragson led 129 of 167 laps of the 37 Kind Days 250 and beat team owner Kyle Busch by 1.558 seconds.
With drivers trying various tire and fuel strategies, Gragson took the lead for the final time when Myatt Snider ran out of fuel with five laps to go.
Daly to race at Road America: Conor Daly will make his NASCAR debut in August when he jumps from an Indy car into a Ford Mustang for Roush Fenway Racing for the Xfinity race in Elkhart Lake.
The team announced that Daly will join Ryan Reed and Wisconsin native Ty Majeski in a three-car entry for the race. All of them will carry Lilly Diabetes sponsorship. Daly and Reed both have Type 1 diabetes. Majeski’s grandfather has Type 2 diabetes.
IndyCar: Will Power won his third IndyCar Grand Prix pole by turning a fast lap of 1 minute 9.8182 seconds on his final qualifying run on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Robert Wickens will start second.