Drought over
On a wet Bristol track, Matt Kenseth proves he remains a top driver with his first victory since 2013,
BRISTOL, TENN. Matt Kenseth’s true feelings often seem shrouded in the self-effacing humor and wry wit that mark his personality.
But such stretches can engender doubt, even as, or maybe because, he won a series-high seven races in 2013 to finish as Sprint Cup runner-up and finished seventh in the series in 2014 without a victory in his first two seasons at Joe Gibbs Racing.
Sometimes the car had held him back in the last 51 races, sometimes a personal mistake, sometimes an untimely caution when he was poised to spring.
Put in position, he put his mind at rest Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway, bearing away from the field after a lengthy redflag period to win the Food City 500.
Even this took longer than he could have ever imagined. After three red flags for weather and 511 laps — 11 beyond the scheduled distance because of a caution period needed to dry the track after one final shower — in a race that spanned nearly nine hours.
“Honestly, it does, it wears on you a little bit,” he said. “We had such a good 2013; we came a little short of the ultimate prize there, but we had such a great season. And last year there were some races we had some chances to win and just things wouldn’t line up for us. We just couldn’t get it to happen. Tonight was kind of the opposite. Everything worked out.”
But it wasn’t for free Sunday at a racetrack that is becoming contentious ground again.
Kenseth methodically dealt with each driver capable of denying him, first Kyle Larson, then Kurt Busch. Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards appeared to take himself out of contention, washing up into the wall on lap 495. Jimmie Johnson burst from fourth to second on the green-white-checkered finish, but Kenseth clinically managed the final two laps to become the sixth different winner this season in eight races.
“It never gets old,” crew chief Jason Ratcliff said of winning again.
This wasn’t a vintage Bristol summer race slugfest, but it produced plenty of wreckage and Kenseth escaped unscathed after starting from the pole. Busch, running third, cued a six-car wreck on a lap 278 restart when he drifted up into Johnson. Former Bristol winner Kevin Harvick, who led a race-high 184 laps, was collected in a lap 310 incident between Johnson and Jeb Bur- ton. Landon Cassill had a hard head-on hit into the Turn 1 wall as leader Larson tagged him while making a pass on lap 365.
Larson was finally forced to pit and surrender the lead on lap 437, turning the battle up front over to Busch and Kenseth, both of whom entered the race winless. Kenseth commanded the lead when Ratcliff elected to skip a lap 473 pit stop opportunity, and he spent most of the remaining laps fending off his teammate in winning for the fourth time at Bristol.
When reminded Friday that he was in close age proximity to Jeff Gordon, 43, who announced his intentions to retire from full-time racing after this season, Kenseth, also 43, quipped he had nowhere near the “mileage” or the statistics. Kenseth and Gordon have at times squabbled — Gordon shoved Kenseth on pit road at Bristol in 2006 after Kenseth spun him on the final lap — but Gordon expressed an admiration for his contemporary.
“You know, I like Matt,” said Gordon, who was third. “He and I, we’ve had our differences over the years, but I get along really well with him. When you see a guy like that who’s certainly in the later stages of his career, makes a move over to Gibbs, he’s just one of those guys you like seeing good things happen to.”
“It feels good to be back here. Not winning for as long as we (did), it really, honestly, it does, it wears on you.”
Matt Kenseth, who won for the first time since September 2013