Kenseth

DOVER, DEL. -- With 53 laps to go yesterday in NASCAR's Neighborhood Excellence 400, Matt Kenseth's crew chief, Robbie Reiser, told his driver it was time for a pit stop. You need fresh tires, Reiser said over the radio as the yellow caution flag went up. Get in here. Now. Kenseth, in fifth place, looked at the drivers in front of him: Jamie McMurray, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Jeff Burton. None was going in for tires. Kenseth figured if he pitted, he could probably make up some ground, but not all of it. But if he stayed on the track, remained calm, trusted his car and his instincts, he thought he could win. It wasn't a tough call for Kenseth.

The best story from testing at Daytona involves a beard and a bet. Matt Kenseth was among the invited guests for a New Year's Eve '70s party at Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s house. In the heat of the festive moment, Junior bet Kenseth he couldn't keep a beard he had grown — a Fu Manchu thing, in honor of the party — when everybody reconvened at Daytona for testing. Game on, Kenseth said. The boys bet $2,500. Only Kenseth came to Daytona with a lame three-day stubble and tried to pass that off as a "beard.

On the day Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced that he was joining Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR driver Matt Kenseth gave his support of the move. "If you look at Jeff [Gordon] and Jimmie [Johnson], everybody runs over there. As of today they [Hendrick Motorsports] have the most successful organization there is," said Kenseth, who was at Harley-Davidson of Baltimore yesterday for a promotion. "I think any driver would want to be a part of that if they had the opportunity." Kenseth, second in points in the Nextel Cup standings, said he wasn't surprised that Earnhardt made the jump to Hendrick, which has won 10 of 14 points races this season.

Every week, it's another manifestation of the boys having at it. Monday it came from Jeff Gordon , who was so furious at Matt Kenseth for bumping him late in the race, he made it his mission to make sure Kenseth didn't win. "If somebody hits me, I'm going to hit them," Gordon said. "I'm glad I did what I did on the back straightaway. If a guy gives you a cheap shot like that, he doesn't deserve to win the race." Yes, that was Jeff Gordon showing that emotion. Kenseth's response wasn't timid either.

Nearly everyone knows baseball pitchers can get in a zone. Basketball players, too. And hockey players and tennis players. But has anyone considered that a rear tire changer on a Winston Cup stock car can get in a game-day zone? "It is like a zone," said Dave Smith, the 6-foot, 180-pound rear tire changer on Matt Kenseth's DeWalt Ford. "Even when we had a slow stop last weekend, we were ahead [of everyone else]. When it happens, you can see all five lug nuts clearly. When you run around the car, you can see more.

Matt Kenseth is second in the Winston Cup points race, just 99 behind leader Sterling Marlin. It's enough to make me want to jump on his bandwagon and claim him for our own - given he is sponsored by Towson-based DeWalt Industries. No doubt I'd get an argument from all those race-loving fans in his native Wisconsin. But, claimed or not, Kenseth is riding a very nice wave at the moment. After winning at Rockingham in the second race of the season, he has been nothing but consistent, finishing among the top cars each week.

HAMPTON, Ga. -- Just when it seemed NASCAR's playoffs couldn't get any more puzzling, go figure this latest twist: The hottest driver during this Chase for the Nextel Cup isn't even in it. Tony Stewart, who missed the cut in September, got his second win of the playoff season in yesterday's Bass Pro Shops 500. Through seven Chase races, the 2005 Nextel Cup champion has scored more points, 995, than any current contender. "But we're not in the Chase," Stewart retorted rhetorically to a flurry of questions he dismissed as "what-ifs and coulda-shouldas."

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. - As the two cars closed hard toward the finish line, even the boys following the leaders felt the adrenaline rush. "I about drove it into Turn 3 watching Kasey [Kahne] trying to win his first race," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. Kahne's dramatic charge on Matt Kenseth came up inches short, as the nose of Kenseth's Ford scratched the finish line first to win the Subway 400 at North Carolina Speedway yesterday. "It was a close one," Kenseth said. The margin was one-hundredth of a second.

FONTANA, Calif. -- Matt Kenseth opened this year's Nextel Cup season fending off questions about why NASCAR had suspended his crew chief for breaking the rules during qualifying for the Daytona 500. Kenseth also was docked 50 championship points, and the 2003 Cup champion then saw a strong Daytona finish vanish on the last lap in a multi-car crash. But Kenseth put Daytona firmly behind him yesterday by keeping his Ford Fusion ahead of five Chevrolets and winning the Auto Club 500 for the second consecutive year at California Speedway.

LAS VEGAS - If it weren't for those pesky yellow caution flags, Matt Kenseth might have lapped the 42 other cars in NASCAR's Nextel Cup race here yesterday. As it was, the defending Cup champion from Cambridge, Wis., brought team owner Jack Roush his fifth victory in seven races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway before a sellout crowd of about 140,000. When his Ford Taurus took the checkered flag, Kenseth's margin over rookie pole-sitter Kasey Kahne was 3.426 seconds - nearly a quarter mile - and he led 123 of the 267 laps in the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, but even that doesn't tell his dominance.

Matt Kenseth, the first NASCAR Sprint Cup driver in 11 years to win the opening two races of the season, was in Towson yesterday for a sponsor appearance at DeWalt Industrial Tool Co. Instead of writing a mundane article about the Daytona 500 winner from Wisconsin, we posed him a series of questions he might never have been asked before --- and likely won't again. Who is bigger in Wisconsin, you or Brett Favre? I'd have to say Brett Favre - although since he left and went to the [New York]

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -As the rain clouds crept closer to Daytona International Speedway yesterday, Matt Kenseth crept closer to the front of the field. He passed Elliott Sadler with a push from Kevin Harvick to take the lead on Lap 146 of the Daytona 500. And as the rain came down six laps later, Kenseth, known for his even-keeled and calm personality, started screaming into his radio: "Rain! Rain! Rain! Rain!" It caught his crew chief off guard, but this was a big moment. Kenseth was in first place when the race was red-flagged because of rain.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Jimmie Johnson won his second consecutive NASCAR Nextel Cup championship by driving a conservative, incident-free race and finishing seventh behind winner Matt Kenseth in the season finale yesterday. Kenseth, perhaps the second-hottest driver behind Johnson in recent weeks, was dominant in winning the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he led 214 of the 267 laps. Johnson's title capped one of the strongest seasons for a NASCAR driver in the sport's modern era. The El Cajon, Calif.

Auto Racing JOLIET, Ill. -- Twenty races had passed since Tony Stewart climbed a fence, his way of celebrating NASCAR victories. So he wasn't about to let Matt Kenseth get around him in the waning laps of yesterday's USG Sheetrock 400, even though Kenseth got three excellent shots on restarts after late caution flags. After Stewart earned his first win this season and climbed the fence at Chicagoland Speedway, the two-time Nextel Cup champion said, "I'm more overjoyed than anything. I'm glad we got the monkey off our back, at least for one week.

On the day Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced that he was joining Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR driver Matt Kenseth gave his support of the move. "If you look at Jeff [Gordon] and Jimmie [Johnson], everybody runs over there. As of today they [Hendrick Motorsports] have the most successful organization there is," said Kenseth, who was at Harley-Davidson of Baltimore yesterday for a promotion. "I think any driver would want to be a part of that if they had the opportunity." Kenseth, second in points in the Nextel Cup standings, said he wasn't surprised that Earnhardt made the jump to Hendrick, which has won 10 of 14 points races this season.

FONTANA, Calif. -- Matt Kenseth opened this year's Nextel Cup season fending off questions about why NASCAR had suspended his crew chief for breaking the rules during qualifying for the Daytona 500. Kenseth also was docked 50 championship points, and the 2003 Cup champion then saw a strong Daytona finish vanish on the last lap in a multi-car crash. But Kenseth put Daytona firmly behind him yesterday by keeping his Ford Fusion ahead of five Chevrolets and winning the Auto Club 500 for the second consecutive year at California Speedway.

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. - Bill Elliott, a 48-year-old veteran with one of the greatest driving resumes in stock-car racing history, and Matt Kenseth, a 31-year-old driver from Wisconsin emerging as a star in NASCAR's new generation, shared a day in the sun yesterday at North Carolina Speedway. Elliott won the Pop Secret 400, the final fall race to be held at this 1.017-mile track, holding off Jimmie Johnson over the final 75 laps to score the 44th victory of his Winston Cup career. Kenseth, meanwhile, finished fourth in the race to wrap up the 2003 Winston Cup championship one race short of season's end. He came into the day needing a seventh place to wrap things up and fought his way into position to do that easily by the checkered flag.

AVONDALE, Ariz. --Jimmie Johnson widened his lead in the Chase for the Nextel Cup by hugging the bumper of Kevin Harvick, who again dominated in the desert yesterday to win the series' next-to-last race. Harvick captured the Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, with Johnson's Chevrolet a close second. That gave Johnson a 63-point lead over Matt Kenseth as NASCAR's top series heads to its finale Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida. "We wish we were closer than that, but we did everything we could do today," Harvick said.

Adam Carbaugh is not monogamous when it comes to power tools. He and his demolitions crew use some DeWalt products, but they also tend to flirt with other brands as well when tearing down buildings and busting up foundations. That's not good enough for DeWalt, maker of premium power tools and accessories. It's looking for an exclusive relationship. And so on a recent Sunday, DeWalt took Carbaugh on what for him was a dream date: making him an honorary member of NASCAR driver Matt Kenseth's pit crew at Dover International Speedway in Delaware.