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Kenseth
gets 26th Cup win and joins Johnson, Busch as two-time winners in '13. Photo
courtesy of nascar.com
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Kenseth wins in Kansas
nascar.com
KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Matt Kenseth likened his victory in the STP 400 to
a game of musical chairs -- you had to be leading when the music
stopped.
If you looked at statistics alone, you'd say that Kenseth dominated
Sunday at Kansas Speedway in the eighth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race
of the season. After all, Kenseth won the event from the pole and led
163 of the 267 laps.
In reality, Kenseth prevailed in a race of extraordinary strategic
complexity, with divergent approaches shuffling and reshuffling the
running order until an opportune caution on Lap 218 put Kenseth back in
the lead at just the right time.
Nonetheless, it took all of Kenseth's consummate skill to hold off
fast-closing Kasey Kahne, who narrowed what had been a lead of more
than one second to .151 seconds at the finish. Jimmie Johnson ran
third, followed by Martin Truex Jr. and Clint Bowyer.
The victory was Kenseth's second at Kansas, his second of the season
and the 26th of his career. The driver of the No. 20 Toyota has won
both races at Kansas since the track was repaved last year.
"It was kind of like musical chairs," Kenseth said. "You had to be out
front when the music stopped. Our car was very fast in clean air. It
was reasonable in dirty air, but it wasn't quite good enough to catch
all them guys and pass 'em (in traffic).
"Thankfully, I had a couple of really crazy-good restarts for some
reason and made up some ground and got us back in position."
Kahne started 27th, but the speed in his No. 5 Chevrolet SS belied the
qualifying effort. Kahne's crew tightened up the handling of his car
for the final run, but not quite enough. There was a sense of déjà vu
for Kahne, who chased Kenseth to the finish line March 10 at Las Vegas.
"We were very close at the end, battling with Matt," Kahne said. "Felt
like Vegas all over again, just kind of felt like really similar to
that in how I could catch him but couldn't really do anything once I
got close. It made my car a little bit looser. So I tried a few things
there, and he kind of blocked those spots and went those directions and
gained the speed that I (had), and then we were even again.
"It was tough, but we still had a great race."
Defending Cup champion Brad Keselowski came home sixth, despite
sustaining heavy damage to his rear bumper when the field checked up on
the first lap.
For this story and more, click here
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