Matt Kenseth – NSCS ADVANCE Team: No. 17 Crown Royal Black Ford Fusion Crew Chief: Jimmy Fennig Chassis: Primary: RK-713 (Brand new chassis)
Kenseth on racing at Daytona International Speedway : “The Daytona 500 is our biggest race of the year, so when you can win that race it is one of the things you like to collect. You want to win every week, but if you had to pick one race, this would be one of them. It was great to win it back in 2009, and I’d really like to win it again. The new surface has so much more grip now that we’re able to change lanes at the drop of the hat and put the car wherever we want. You couldn’t do that before because the pavement was so worn out and we had such big restrictor plates. Drafting partners were really important in the Shootout, but I’m interested to see how the race plays out with a full field of 43 cars all together for the 500.”
Crew chief Jimmy Fennig on racing at Daytona International Speedway : “After Saturday night’s Shootout, we really saw how important having a drafting partner is with this new surface. Our focus is to find as much speed as we can in our Crown Royal Black Ford since handling isn’t as much of a hassle as it has been in the past at Daytona. We’ll look to have a strong run in Thursday’s Duel race so that we can earn a good starting position for the 500 on Sunday and start the season off on the right foot.”
FAST FACTS:
• Kenseth has led laps in four of his last five consecutive Daytona 500 races
• Kenseth has an average starting position of 22.2 and an average finishing position of 17.3 at Daytona
• Kenseth has achieved one win, three top-5’s, and ten top-10’s at Daytona
• Kenseth has completed 3,564 of 3,845 (92.7 percent) laps at Daytona and led for a total of 69 laps
• This weekend at Daytona, Kenseth will pilot the No. 17 Crown Royal Black Ford Fusion
