MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Black Ford Fusion – YOU AVOIDED TO WRECKS, BUT WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS ONE? “I really don’t know. I was just following Kurt and we were going straight on the bottom and the next thing I knew I was head-on into the wall, so I really don’t know what happened. Obviously, somebody got into my right-rear and got us up in the wall, but I don’t know. You can’t see anything. All you can see is the spoiler in front of you and I was just trying to stay on Kurt and wait until the end. Kurt is extremely good at this and we were able to work our way up in there. I thought we were gonna have a shot there at the end, but you knew there were gonna be a bunch more of these wrecks. I mean, it was hard to balance what to do.”
YOU HAD A GOOD CAR. “I think everybody has a pretty good car depending on who you’re getting shoved by and who is shoving you, so I don’t know. I was just going straight on the bottom following Kurt and got hit in the right-rear and put me straight in the wall. I don’t really know what happened to cause that. Obviously, something happened beside me that got somebody into my right-rear. I didn’t even know it was coming, just driving straight hoping to miss the rest of the bullets and get to the end and just got in a wreck.”
WHETHER IT’S A BIG PACK OR TWO-CAR TANDEMS, THIS KIND OF STUFF HAPPENS HERE AT TALLADEGA. “I guess. This two-car thing is really hard as a driver. If you’re the tail car, you can’t see anything. All you can see is the spoiler in front of you and going that fast and not being able to see is not the most comforting feeling. You catch people real fast and you have to have a lot of faith in the guy in front of you, and you’re gonna spin people out because they make a quick move and you’re shoving them as hard as you can shove them doing 200 miles an hour, if they make a move too quick, they’re gonna crash. It’s a difficult environment to race in to say the least.”
IS IT BETTER THAN IT HAS BEEN HERE FROM THE OLD STYLE? “Ever since I’ve been coming to Talladega or watching Talladega, everytime you interview somebody that has crashed they’re like, ‘Oh, this racing is terrible. Somebody is gonna get hurt.’ I mean, it’s been the same thing, but it’s different. Before, at least you can kind of control your own destiny and you can draft a little bit. Here, if you don’t have a car locked on you and shoving you, or vice versa, you’re gonna get lapped in 15-20 laps and it’s really hard.”
HOW WAS THE RADIO COMMUNICATION? “It actually helped. When David was helping me so much in the beginning and we were having so much success, we were both on my channel and it really helped because he was behind me and I could tell him the moves I was gonna make before I made them, but I still think at the end of the day it would probably be better for everybody to have their own radio and everybody be able to see where they’re going. That would probably be a good way to do it.”
DAVID SAID HE DIDN’T TALK TO HIS SPOTTER THE FIRST PART OF THE RACE. “We’re locked together and he’s using my spotter, so instead of having a 15-foot car, you’ve got a 30-foot car you’re spotting for, so it’s really not much difference, but it’s kind of like trailer racing, where the guy behind you can’t see anything. He’s just staying on your bumper and controlling his water temp.”
HOW WOULD YOU ALLEVIATE THE VISION PROBLEM AS THE PUSHER? “It makes it a worse problem because you’re pushing somebody as hard as you can and you can’t see what’s in front of him, so you don’t know it he’s catching somebody 30 miles an hour or five miles an hour. You don’t know what’s going on. If he makes a quick move, if you’re not ready for it, that’s how people get spun out because their car is moving one way and you don’t know where they’re going. I think as long as we race at these kind of tracks we’re gonna have wrecks, that’s part of it, but this way is hard. It’s easier in a way because you don’t have a huge pack, but it’s also hard because you can’t really see anything that’s going on and you’re going extremely fast. There could be somebody dead stopped on the track and you’re gonna push the guy in front of you head-on into him because you can’t see anything. So that makes it difficult.”
As a fan watching you don’t even realize that all the driver can see is the bumper. Or at least I didn’t know it. If that is the case, then NASCAR really needs to change something before someone gets killed in a wreck. This isn’t supposed to be duo racing.