MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What are your thoughts on this year’s Chase and championship?
“It’s been an interesting Chase for us because we haven’t ran consistently really, really well and we still have a shot at it if we can have a good day here Sunday. I’m looking forward to Sunday. It hasn’t been the best track for us. We definitely ran better here in the spring than we ran last fall. We came out here and tested and hopefully we can improve on that and have a solid run Sunday.”
Would it be good or bad for the sport if you were able to advance without a win this weekend?
“I don’t know, but it’d be really good for me.”
Do you expect Sunday to be an intense race?
“You never know what’s going to happen. There’s been a lot of emotional moments for sure and the racing’s been intense, which I think the racing has always been intense. It’s surprised me a little bit how nobody has been super consistent up in the top couple — kind of like a normal Chase where you’ve got a few guys that are just there every week without really having problems, that type of thing. So certainly there’s been some ups and downs and some emotions and all that. I think what’s going to happen Sunday is impossible to predict. The only thing you know for sure is that everybody’s going to be racing out there as hard as they can to try to get a win and the eight cars that are trying to advance next weekend are going to be racing as hard as they can to advance.”
Is there any reason in particular you haven’t run as well in Phoenix lately as you have in the past?
“I don’t know about that. It’s hard for me to think back on every race here and things that happened and certain circumstances and that type of thing. I don’t know, we came here last spring, my first time with JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) and had a really good car. I thought we had a car that could have won and had some problems in the pits. I don’t remember where we finished, but it wasn’t bad. Last fall was a disaster. In the spring, I think we were a little bit better, but all year this year we’ve been off a bit compared to last year. It’s hard to say, I don’t feel like it’s a bad track for me necessarily, I just don’t have the greatest numbers here. Wish I did.”
Is it fair game to cut the corner in the dog leg and come back and bump someone?
“You can never predict when the cautions are going to come out. Sometimes you can get a pretty good guess, but toward the end you can’t really predict it and you don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know how much it changes, I think everybody kind of has their own code I guess, if you will — what they’ll do and what they won’t do, what’s acceptable and what’s not. Typically you’re going to get raced how you race people so as long as you’re ready to be raced back like that, I guess you have to make that decision when you’re in that situation. Cutting the dog leg, I was OK. When you get to the corner, the track is starting to widen out and with the weather forecast this weekend, I don’t think we’re going to race three wide down there, but I think it will be three grooves wide on entry. You see some cars running the apron and you see some guys two, three grooves up if you watch the race from the spring. With no rain forecast, I think it’s going to be plenty wide, so I think it’s acceptable to cut the apron and go three wide in there. I think that’s something that happens every time we race.”
Does this championship battle feel different from last year at this point?
“It’s a night and day difference to be honest with you. Last year, I felt like we were maybe not the favorite — I always felt Jimmie (Johnson) was kind of the favorite, but yet we had the most wins, the most laps led. We had a 10-week championship race where you kind of fret over every point and every position. It was a lot more stressful. This year it has a really different feeling. I feel like we’ve been knocked down on the mat every round at some point or another. I think every round we’ve got in a wreck or had a terrible finish or something. We’ve been able to advance. This one is obviously tougher, but even running sixth and 25th last week — I don’t know how we managed that and still being close to the top-four is surprising. It feels a lot different. It feels like we’ve had some mulligans.”
What are the unwritten rules between drivers in the garage area?
“I don’t know. I think every situation is different. I think you can’t really control how somebody else is going to race, but in general in the garage area the way you race somebody is more than likely how you’re going to get raced back more times than not. I think you have to take that into consideration. I don’t know, everybody has their own way of racing.”
What did you take away from the Phoenix race last year?
“We were terrible on the race track last year and we made some mistakes in the pits as well. The whole day just wasn’t good — we just never did anything to help ourselves. I don’t think it’s something that we really sat down and dissected and talked about. We were all pretty clear that it was disastrous when it was over and you always try to learn from things that go wrong. You try to learn from things that go right too, but you always try to learn and be better. We didn’t run well and we didn’t really help ourselves on top of that.”
What makes your former crew chief Jimmy Fennig tick?
“Racing is what makes him tick and the competition. It’s hard to argue that Jimmy (Fennig) isn’t one of the best crew chiefs in the garage. There’s not many people that have been in the sport as long as he has and remained relevant and competitive as long as he has. He’s right in the Championship hunt again in 2014. I don’t know what year he started, but I’ll never forget when we won the Daytona 500 in 2012 and he was smiling and said, ‘The last time I was here was 25 years ago with Bobby Allison – that was the last time I won the Daytona 500.’ When you think about that and all the changes that this sport has had with technology and the cars and engineering and all that stuff compared to where we started, it really says something about somebody that’s still that competitive today.”
What can you do on track to make someone’s life more difficult?
“I think everybody is going to race as hard as they can for every spot they can get, especially if it means advancing or not advancing. Obviously you’re going to race as hard as you can and try to finish as high as you can. I don’t know that it’s that much different than any other week. You’re always trying to do that. If it’s lap 20 and someone is faster than you, it’s probably not going to do either one of you much good to hold them up, but if it’s 20 to go and he’s faster than you, obviously you’re going to do what you can if you need that spot. Obviously you’re going to do what you can to hold him off just like you would at any event. I don’t know what’s going to happen any more than you do. We’re going to approach it like any other weekend and do the best we can today to get qualified well and try to pick the stall on pit road that will give us the best pit stops and rolling time and all that stuff on pit road like we would any other week and go out and try to compete on Sunday. For us the strategy doesn’t really change.”
