[media-credit name=”Barry Albert” align=”alignright” width=”225″]
[/media-credit]Currently sitting in third-place in the Sprint Cup Series points standings, Matt Kenseth heads into Richmond International Raceway already locked in the chase and focused on his current No. 17 team and not his future No. 20 team at Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR).
“It is hard because I am really excited about that but I don’t want to slight the team I am at either. I am still working over there until the end of the season and I am 100-percent focused and committed on Roush Fenway racing and trying to win over there.” Kenseth said.
Currently Kenseth has one win, nine top-5’s and 15 top-10’s this season and is poised to win another championship despite being the odd driver out at one team and the new driver at another.
“I think most of that is all past us. One thing they told me is that they didn’t like my horizontal stripes on Tuesday. Other than that they didn’t really say much about it. I went over and hung out with them for awhile the other day and they are fine. They understand. I think they have been over that for awhile and we are all focused on the task at hand.” Kenseth said of his team seeing him in different colors on Tuesday.
Kenseth won at Richmond in 2002 and hopes Saturday night under the lights, he can win another.”
“It has always been one of my favorite tracks. We have really struggled a lot here really since the COT car came along. I think it is an important race for us. We definitely want to get a good finish and have some momentum going into Chicago and maybe you can learn some things that you can use at New Hampshire or that type of thing.”
With all of the hype of changing teams and changing manufactures, Kenseth does not see this as a distraction, but motivation to do more.
“I don’t think that is going to change things. All your incentives are to try to do good, no matter what your plans are for the following year. All our incentives are to win races and try to win the championship.” Kenseth said.
With positive motivation from his team, fans and the new future, Kenseth could be heading to JGR as the 2012 Sprint Cup Champion.
“I think most of the fan feedback and some of my peers and stuff like that has been almost 100-percent positive which makes me feel good.” Kenseth said. “I was kind of surprised how excited I am honestly. I am excited about that opportunity to go do that next year.”
