MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What is your mindset heading into Pocono this weekend?
“I feel like we’ve been running better lately. I feel like we have some momentum as far as how our cars are running as an organization. This has not been one of the best tracks for me — I haven’t really done the best here. It’s a really good track for Denny (Hamlin) and Kyle (Busch) runs well here. They ran pretty well the last time we were here. Hopefully, we can go have a clean weekend and have a good run. Like I said, this is probably one of the more challenging places for me for some reason. Looking forward to getting on the track today — the weather looks good so far so hopefully we can log some miles today and learn some stuff for Sunday.”
Would a team consider points racing rather than taking a chance at a win this season?
“No, because you get the most points to win. I don’t ever know why you wouldn’t want to win. I get asked those questions all the time and people always look at me like I’m being smart, but it’s true. You get the most points if you lead the most laps and win so why wouldn’t you want to show up and sit on the pole, lead every lap and win the race. Then you’ve got the most points and you’re locked in because you got a win. Life is good. I think that’s what we aim to do every weekend. If you could force a win or if you could gamble or do something crazy to win a race, you would do it every week. You want to win every week. There’s the very, very, very rare circumstance where maybe you’re like, ‘Well, I’m two laps short on fuel at Pocono,’ which you know your chances of making that are almost nothing and I’m going to try to make it because we have to get the win and we’re the only ones that can make it and run out and finish 35th. Yeah, you have things like that, which very seldom happen, but they are so good at figuring fuel mileage today and strategy and all that stuff that they typically know if you’re going to make it or not make it. Other than those kind of situations, we go out and try to prepare and race and do all those things with the idea of trying to win.”
Does the team have more confidence after solid performances the last few weeks?
“It doesn’t hurt. I think whenever you run good really anywhere except maybe a superspeedway, it gives you confidence going into next week even if it’s a totally different kind of race track. I feel like at Loudon all three of us had top-five cars and we all ran well at Kentucky. We all ran well last weekend and those are all very different race tracks so it gives you some hope that in general and on average you’re getting your stuff better and it’s getting faster and we seem to be gaining on it toward the right time of the year. Just keep working on it and hope that continues and we keep putting all three of our cars up front there and hopefully we start winning some races.”
How hard is it to be competitive over so many years like Jeff Gordon?
“I think when you look at almost anybody’s career and I say almost because Jimmie Johnson seems to be the exception, but I think you see especially with Jeff (Gordon), he’s done way better than pretty much anyone else in the garage so he’s had a lot higher ties, but he’s also had some years that haven’t been great and have probably been frustrating and hasn’t won as much or hasn’t run up front as much. I think you see everybody go through up and down times — most of us haven’t been as fortunate as him to have that many up times. I think you always see it up and down a little bit and some years are better than others. It’s funny how fast things can change. A couple years ago all the rumblings were about Jeff retiring and his back hurts and he’s not running as good and this, that and the other thing. Now he’s winning all the biggest races of the year and runs up front every week and is on the front of everybody’s mind for trying to win another championship. He’s had a great career and it’s still rolling great. Me not being one of the young guys anymore and not nearly as old as Jeff, but not that far behind him, you like to see that group still winning and running good because you’re part of that group and you want to keep doing that as long as you can.”
Is there a track before the Chase that you feel the team has a good shot of winning?
“It’s always a moving target. Last year I felt like there wasn’t very many tracks that we didn’t have a shot to win on — I really felt like if we did everything right at not every week last year, but a lot of weeks that we could win. Certainly this year even at some of the tracks that were great for us last year we haven’t been quite as good. I guess probably — I hadn’t really put much thought into it, but probably Bristol. I feel like since I’ve been at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing), which this is only my second year, but all three trips to Bristol I really felt like we could have won all three of those races. I really felt like we had the best car both races last year — got wrecked out in the spring just by a freak accident when Jeff (Gordon) blew his tire. Then we won the fall race and this spring I thought we had one of the best cars for sure — thought we were a little bit better than the 99 (Carl Edwards) and got wrecked there under that yellow. You never know what’s going to happen at Bristol, obviously we had two wrecks and a win so you could get wrecked as easily as you could have a shot at a win, but I feel like our cars have been really fast there. Just thinking about that track it seems like hopefully we’ll run that good again.”
Have you shown that a transition to a new team is not as difficult as in previous years?
“I think the situation is different for everybody. I think there’s different situations — you’re in those situations for a different reason. I think that when the driver is the one to make the decision to leave, he’s not going to leave where he’s at unless he thinks he can run better where he’s going. On the other hand, if you get let go because you’re not performing or they can’t get sponsors or whatever and you don’t want to go then you have to pick out whoever will give you a job, typically that transition’s probably not going to be as productive and run as well because you feel like you’re probably taking a step back. I think it depends on the situation. With me and with Kevin (Harvick), I think it was both of our decisions to go try to do something else to hopefully have better performance.”
What is the impact of not having a crew chief at the race track?
“I think that it’s probably not as hard today as it was in the past just because of electronic communications and technology and all the ways they can chat on the computers. The way they can do all of that stuff certainly I think it makes it easier as far as the technical aspect and changes to the car and setups and all of that kind of stuff. You’re still missing your head coach. The guy who leads the people and gets them together and talks strategy and you’re still not looking in his eyes and talking face to face and doing all of that kind of stuff. So, I think it’s not as hard as it was at one time but I think certainly you’d still want him here.”
What was it like at Darlington last year when you didn’t have Jason Ratcliff at the race track?
“We had a lot going on that week for sure. Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) was still really involved. Wally (Brown, interim crew chief for No. 20 last year at Darlington) has been really plugged in at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) for a long time. I’ve known Wally for a long time. He worked at Roush when I was back there and I’ve known him forever. He’s got crew chief experience, so JGR has a lot of depth and it wasn’t hard to just plug him into that, but certainly Jason was real close to it the whole time as well.”
What is it about Pocono that makes it a tough race track for you?
“Well, you have to go back and look at all of the races. There’s some races I felt like we ran pretty good, but didn’t finish as well for whatever reason. Other times we just haven’t ran well. So, I don’t know. I guess naturally you’re better at some places than others. Maybe it’s the track you struggle a little bit more at or you’ve got to work harder at or you’re feedback is not as good or whatever. That’s a great question. I feel like when our cars run good all three of us seem to run pretty good no matter what the track is. We seem to be able to help each other and feed off each other and get running better. But, I’m not really sure. It’s never been a wonderful track for me. In the spring last year I think we had a pretty good run. I don’t remember where we finished or what happened but I think we ran pretty well. So, just kind of come with an open mind every time we come here and keep trying to do better.”
What are your thoughts of Mark Martin’s new job at Roush Fenway Racing?
“I know very little to nothing about it. I was just taking off yesterday and somebody said, ‘Oh yeah, he’s coming back to be a driver coach or something.’ That was all I heard. Yeah, I think Mark (Martin) started with Jack (Roush) and Mark has always really, really liked Jack and had a lot of respect for him and I figured someday he would end back there in some shape or form. I’m surprised he’s not going to start driving again. So, I think that’s good for him. I’ve had limited communication with him. I try to talk to him every once in a while and check on him and I’m not so sure that retirement is for him quite yet. He’s been around it his whole life and it’s pretty much been his life is racing. So, I had a feeling that he probably misses it a lot and wants to try to figure out how to get in the garage area someway and do some things. I’m glad for him that hopefully he finds something that he likes doing.”
