TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Matt Kenseth — Notes & Quotes
Dover International Speedway – May 30, 2014
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What is your outlook for this weekend?
“I really like the track. It’s one of those tracks that’s really fast and you can always — it’s a real fast track. You can attack it. It’s one of the tracks that’s pretty hard to get around fast by yourself and then you throw all of them cars out there and it makes it a lot harder. Looking forward to getting on the track. It’s always been one of my favorites. We haven’t been quite perfect here the last few times so I’m looking forward to getting to work today and hopefully finding a good balance on some speed.”
Is there any urgency for your team to win and get into the Chase?
“I don’t know if there is any more or less than any other year. I know, obviously, you more than likely need a win to get into the Chase, but you do the best you can every week to try to win no matter what the point standings are or no matter how that works out. So, I don’t think there’s any more or less urgency than anything else. It’s not like you can just say, ‘Man, we really need a win’ and you just go and get one. It doesn’t really work like that. So, you’re trying to win every week and just go out and keep doing the best you can to try to put your best races together every week and hopefully you’ll get one sooner or later.”
Do you feel like everyone else is putting the urgency on you?
“Certainly we wish we had a win, but like I said before you can’t really force it. You can’t just say ‘Hey man, we need a win’ and just go and get one. If it was that easy you’d win every week. Wins have always been really important. If we could’ve won more in the Chase last year we probably would’ve won the championship. So, I mean, you always want to win races, you always want to lead laps, qualify the best you can. Like I said, you just keep giving your best every week and hopefully that will come. So, if we could’ve won some of the races earlier this year we would’ve. We just haven’t been quite good enough. I feel like my team has been doing a great job, doing a great job on pit road and really executing and great adjustments and doing all of that stuff. We’ve been in position to win a few races, we just haven’t quite had the speed yet. So, we’ll just keep working on it and hopefully keep putting together mistake-free races and putting ourselves in position and hopefully sooner or later it works out.”
Is there an unwritten code among drivers on when it is okay or not okay to block?
“I don’t know. You’ve got to do whatever you can to try to win the race toward the end. I was just at that particular instance was just looking in the mirror and it looked like I was clear so I was going to try to get back down in front of him so he couldn’t get underneath me and obviously he had enough speed and power to be able to still get in there in the hole. You’re going to do whatever you can to try to stay in front of the guy at the end of the race to try to hold onto the win. Obviously I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stay in front of him as fast as he was, but you still want to try to stay there. You never know what’s going to happen if you can catch a caution and get another shot at a restart or who knows what could happen so you’re going to do whatever you can to try to stay in front of him. But, as I got further down the straightaway it was clear that he was going to get in the hole there so I had to move back up and give him his lane.”
Has running Nationwide races helped your performance in the Sprint Cup Series?
“I don’t know about that. There’s always an argument to be made. I think there’s certain tracks where it’s nice to get the extra track time places we only go to maybe once a year that maybe change a tire or something like that. It’s nice to get the extra time. It’s fun, we’ve got some great partners over there. But, I don’t know. There’s always that argument. Sometimes you feel like maybe it helps you a little bit on the Cup side, sometimes you feel like it doesn’t. So, I don’t know. It’s hard to say.”
Why is Dover your favorite track?
“Well, I made my first Cup start here a long time ago. I’ve just always liked it. It’s really unique. There’s not really any other tracks like this that’s kind of like Bristol but twice as big and twice as fast. It’s just one of those tracks that’s a challenge to get around by yourself especially to get around fast by yourself. It’s just kind of tricky and has a lot of character. Just like I said it’s really unique and there’s not really anything like it on the circuit.”
What do you remember about your first Sprint Cup Series start at Dover?
“I remember almost everything about the first race and it was a long one so we don’t want to hit all of those points, but just I wasn’t expecting to run it and it really wasn’t a lot of pressure. We just had a lot of fun. We ran really competitive and probably could’ve ran third and got behind there a little bit at the end and finished sixth. It was just a really fun day.”
