TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Matt Kenseth — Notes & Quotes
Dover International Speedway – September 27, 2013
MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Home Depot “Let Do This” Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What is your outlook for Dover this weekend?
“Glad to get here this weekend. I’ve always loved this race track and with the momentum that we’ve been having and the finishes and performance and all of that stuff, I just honestly couldn’t wai t to get back to the track. So glad we’re here. Ready to get started with our day and get back to work.”
What is your strategy for Dover as it relates to consistency?
“I think like any other track, go and try to do the best job you can of doing a good job at the things that we can control and not worry about the things we can’t control. To me, the approach doesn’t really change. There’s way too much competition to really ever change your strategy or approach unless something weird happens and you get down to the last race like you’ve seen Jimmie (Johnson) a lot of times. Something might change then, but I also think it’s the same. I mean, you go and try to put your best foot forward, try to qualify well today. Today is all about trying to get a little feel in race trim and then try to qualify good. Tomorrow, go to work and try to get the best race setup we can. And then Sunday, go out and race them as hard as we can and hopefully we’re in that front group in a spot to go for a win and if we are try to go for a win. If you can’t get that, you know, finish as high as you can just like we try to do every week.”
Is there anything you’ve learned about Kyle Busch in your first year with Joe Gibbs Racing?
“Well, yeah. I think the more time you spend around anybody probably the more you learn about them and their personality and their traits, strengths and weaknesses and things like that. I think the more time you spend around anybody you kind of learn that. So, certainly yeah there’s more you learn about him (Kyle Busch). I already knew him fairly well and knew a lot about him, but certainly working side-by-side with him you learn more about somebody. Kyle (Busch) was probably about what I expected. I’ve been around Kyle quite a bit. I’ve raced against him a lot and we’ve raced Late Models together and all of that stuff and Kyle is all about racing. I mean, that’s almost 100 percent of what I think he really enjoys and focuses on. When he’s not racing here, he likes racing Nationwide cars or Trucks or Late Models or whatever it is. So, he’s pretty much all business, real focused, real dedicated, works real hard.”
Did you lean on Denny Hamlin for help at New Hampshire last weekend?
“Well, yeah. We always lean on all our teammates. Certainly Denny’s (Hamlin) got a lot of places he’s really, really strong at. New Hampshire is one of those. I think probably more so when we went there early this spring for the tire test and the first race probably more so than the second race, but certainly looking through everything going back there a lot of the stuff we looked at and a lot of the notes we had and stuff is from things that I learned from him or leaned on him about. We all ran a little bit different stuff last weekend, but certainly try to always use all of the resources that we have and especially when you go to a track that’s one of their real strong suits.”
How is Denny Hamlin handling being the ‘odd man out’ of the Chase at Joe Gibbs Racing?
“Well, I don’t really exactly look at it like that. I mean, I know what you’re saying when it comes to not being in the Chase, being the odd man out, but certainly he’s (Denny Hamlin) not the odd man out at all when it comes to meetings, trying to perform, try to finish. He’s still got a lot at stake this year. I know he wants to run the best he can every week. I know he wants to get back to victory lane this year and get everything kind of rolling along. Get some momentum back. Get that feel back in the team like everything is clicking and going good again before the year is over — all three of us are hopefully ready to get into next season — carry that momentum over the off-season and build on that and get ready for ’14. It’s not like it’s a wasted year. All of these races are big. They’re all really important to him, to his race team, to the organization, to his sponsors — all that — so he’s still got eight weeks to get that thing rolling and I can feel it getting better. The last few weeks performance has been getting better, been getting a better feel for things and certainly I think he’s on the right track. I’m sure it’s — we haven’t sat and really talked about it a ton, but I know it’s been a really hard year for him. It all started with getting hurt obviously.”
Does it make a difference to you that your main competition for the championship is a teammate?
“No, not at all. Not from my standpoint and again I know I keep saying this, but we’re only two weeks into this thing. There’s so much racing to do. I don’t know if you know who your main competition is going to be or if you’re going to be part of it when you really get down to it. There’s two months of racing to do. Really thankful that we’ve got the start that we’ve gotten and that the 18 (Kyle Busch) has as well. Kyle had a dominant — maybe not dominant, b ut real strong car at Chicago — I thought that between the two of us. And, last week made up a ton of ground there at the end and pulled a second place out of it and was one of the strongest cars at the end of the race again. So, that’s really good for both of us. It’s good for the whole company. So, I’m glad that he’s got the start that he’s gotten and that we’ve got the start that we’ve got for sure.”
Is it important to try to put drivers away by increasing your point lead?
“I think that’s good if you’re one of the four of five guys that you say, so I think as you — as I’ve watched the Chase through all these this years, there’s always guys that get far enough behind where they’re basically eliminated, and I was one of those guys last year and after we got out of Dover knew that it would take a small miracle to get back in it. I think that happens every year. If you asked me where I’d like to be, I’d like to be out front. I’d like to be out front as far as you could possibly get out there. I think that’s the best place to be. You hope to have a lead and you hope to build on that lead and I think when you get farther behind that’s kind of when not necessarily your strategy changes, but where you maybe try things you wouldn’t typically try and you get out of your comfort zone of the things that you’ve been doing to get you there and all those kind of things and that’s when I think you’re more open to making mistakes or things going wrong, so I think obviously happy with the start we have and hopefully we can build on that and keep our performance and reliability — all those things — and keep getting some finishes.”
Do you think you can win a third-straight race at Kansas?
“It’s difficult to win one, so Kansas obviously was brand new, paved, reconfigured for last fall. We had a fast car there last fall and then circumstances worked out the way we had to pit and fix some damage and ended up being in the front. Obviously, pretty tough to pass with the new pavement there and then this spring we just had an unbelievably fast car and was able to fortunately turn it into a win. Just had a, gosh, probably one of the best cars I’ve ever drove there. In the spring it was fortunate enough we turned that into a pole and a win. I don’t know. Things change a lot. Going back, they’re bringing a different tire back there. We all have a little bit of a test day there Thursday before the race. You always look forward to going back to tracks where you’ve had some good fortune at and some success at. So, we’ll just go back there and hopefully we still have that speed and that balance with this new tire and if we don’t hopefully we can get that dialed in and have a good day again.”
How many poor races can you have in the Chase and do you accept that everyone has one bad Chase race?
“I’ll answer your last question first, no I don’t have that in my mind. I don’t want to have any bad finishes. I don’t think anybody does. I think you want the best finish you can get every week, so that’s what you aim for. I really, honestly do take it just one week a time, each weekend try to focus on that track, that event, try to run as far toward the front as we can and finish the best we can. As far as how many bad finishes you can have, it depends what everybody else does. The only magic formula to the Chase or any championship or anything is to have more points than the people you’re racing against and it depends where they all finish and how many points they have for what it takes to beat them. Every year is a little different, you know, and I use the example of Tony (Stewart) all the time. Tony won a championship in the Chase by not winning any races over the final 10 and then he won a championship in the Chase by winning half of them. Like I said, there’s no magic formula. You have to have more points than your competition. So, really, I’m 100 percent focused on the 20 team and trying to finish as high as we can every week and get as many points as we can each and every week and just go from there.”
Should any changes be made to the Chase?
“Oh gosh, you can ask the next guy that’s coming in (Jimmie Johnson). He’s won five of them under a bunch of different systems. Gosh, I don’t know. I think the best thing would be is to leave everything alone for a while. There’s been so many changes and when everybody talks about changes — point structures, point systems, Chase this and that. I mean, everybody looks at that particular year and says, ‘Oh, how could you change that?’ And they’ll change it. I don’t know. I think it would be great for the fans, competitors, for everybody to have some consistency for a while and I think that’s what NASCAR’s looking at. I think after they made this last change two or three years ago — whenever it was — to simplify the points system, I think that was their goal — to not change it for a while.”
What has been your biggest surprise at Joe Gibbs Racing?
“Well, since I got there I don’t know if there’s been a huge surprise. Obviously, I’m pleasantly surprised with the races that we’ve won and the laps that we’ve led, but I don’t know that anything was a big — a huge surprise — after probably the first time I went over there and saw some of the stuff they had and how they did things and met some of the people. I didn’t really know what to expect and I really had a really open mind when I went over there, so I don’t know that — I didn’t really have any preconceived notions and been like, ‘Oh, they’ve got to do it like this or like that.’ I just kind of went over there and kind of observed and seeing how they did things and tried to fit in and tried to help where I could from there.”
