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Matt Kenseth dominates Sprint Cup race at Texas to snap long winless streak By Kenny Bruce Saturday, April 09, 2011
FORT WORTH, Texas – The fastest car might not always win, but when it does, it wins convincingly.
And Matt Kenseth had the fastest car at Texas Motor Speedway. The fastest car by far.
The Roush Fenway Racing driver sped away from Clint Bowyer in Saturday night’s Samsung Mobile 500, snapping a 76-race winless streak when he crossed the finish line with a gaudy 8.3-second advantage.
Kenseth’s teammates Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle finished third and fourth, respectively, while Paul Menard completed the top five.
The win was the 19th of Kenseth’s career, and he became the sixth different winner in seven Sprint Cup races this season.
“I haven’t had something like this for a long, long time,” Kenseth said in victory lane.
“I am really happy for [crew chief] Jimmy [Fennig] and all these guys. I have lost a lot of close ones at this track. It feels good to be able to close it out.”
Kenseth led nine times for 169 laps, and was strong throughout the nearly three-and-a-half hour race. His last Cup victory came in the second race of the 2009 season, at Auto Club Speedway.
“I’ve gotten beat at the end of a lot of these races,” said Kenseth, now a two-time Texas winner in addition to four runnerup finishes. “It’s great to finish second if you can’t win, but in other ways it’s like getting kicked in the gut.
“… You're leading with two to go, three to go, five to go, and you don't win, it's always disappointing.
“So it feels good to have a night like we had tonight with a dominant car and to be able to get the win.”
Kenseth had built a comfortable 2.5 second lead when he pitted under green for the final time on lap 294, and others soon followed.
Two drivers – Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart – chose to gamble however, having passed up late pit-stop opportunities in an effort to build a lead and hope for a caution flag.
But when the race remained green, Stewart finally pitted once his team felt he was inside the window that would allow him to make it to the end of the race. While a speeding penalty on pit road proved costly, he did work his way back into the top five before finally running out of gas in the closing laps.
By then, Kenseth was back in control.
“Basically, we kind of tweaked on it a little bit,” Fennig said of Kenseth’s car. “The car wasn't perfect all night. We didn't get it perfect. But the speed seemed to be there, so we didn't want to go overboard.
“We were just creeping up a little bit here, a little bit there and what air pressure there was. So that was about it all night.”
Fennig said he was sure Busch would have to stop for fuel at least once more before the end of the race, but that he wasn’t sure about Stewart’s situation.
“I didn't know about Tony if he was going to make it to the end or not,” Fennig said. “ I think he would have. But it would have been close. Kurt, we figured he was going to be short anyways. So that's what we're up against.”
Bowyer, in clean air, was pulling away from Kenseth with less than 100 laps remaining when his night almost went south. While attempting to pass the lapped car of Brian Vickers, Bowyer’s car slid up and into the Red Bull Racing entry.
Fortunately for Bowyer, he was able to keep his car under control, although the move allowed Kenseth to erase the deficit and move back on point. It was the final lead change of the night that took place on the track and not during a round of green-flag pit stops.
“I didn’t have anything for him,” Bowyer said. “Got in the lead and drove away from him once. But I was driving as hard as I possibly could.”
Concerning his incident with Vickers, Bowyer said that “it was so important to get around those [lapped] guys as soon as you got to them; they just slow you down so much. It took me a couple of laps [and] I slowed down two-and-a-half tenths. Matt was starting to catch me and it was time to go.
“I just kind of forced the issue a little bit too much, got loose underneath him, got into him and almost ruined our night.”
Edwards moved back atop the points standings with his third-place finish, while Kenseth improved six spots, and now sits third as the series prepares to head to Talladega Superspeedway next week.
“The goal every year is to win a championship and you can’t do that if you aren’t in the Chase,” Kenseth said. “So we have been pretty good over the last four weeks and now we have a pretty dominating win. Hopefully we can carry this momentum back to victory lane a couple of times.”
File photo of Matt Kenseth
 driver  won his first race of the 2011 NASCAR   on Saturday during the  at  in , Texas. The win was his first since the beginning of the . Throughout the course of the race there were five  and 31 lead changes among 13 drivers.

On the 214th lap, a three car accident occured, prompting ,  and  to drive to the garage for repairs. Afterward, Truex said: "We were struggling a little bit tonight...It’s unfortunate. We sure didn’t need to be wrecked." Toward the conclusion of the race, Kenseth, who became the sixth different winner in the season, retook the first position after  .

Afterward, he remained the leader to finish ahead of  in second. ,  and  followed in the next three positions.  managed the sixth position ahead of  in seventh.  followed Ragan in eighth, while  could only manage ninth. Kurt Busch rounded out the top ten finishers in the race.

After doing his , Kenseth said: "Especially after two years, I didn’t know if I’d have a chance to get here again." Bowyer followed Kenseth's statement saying: "I didn’t have anything for him. I was driving as hard as I could to stay in front of him. It was a solid run, one we can all be proud of."

Following the race, Edwards became  leader with 256 points. Next,  is second with 247, four points ahead of Kenseth and Johnson. Busch and Earnhardt are fifth and sixth respectively with 240 and 235 points. , , , and  round out the top-ten point positions.

The 2011 season will continue on April 17, 2011 at  for the 2011 . The race will be televised in the U.S. on the  at 1:00 p.m. EDT. 


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