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Matt
Kenseth celebrates after winnin the Food City 500 at Bristol Saturday. Photo
by nascar.com
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Kenseth holds off Kahne to win Night Race
at Bristol
nascar.com
BRISTOL. Tenn. -- We’ve seen this script before, Matt Kenseth holding
off Kasey Kahne in the closing laps of a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.
It happened in March at Las Vegas. It happened in April at Kansas. And
it happened again in Saturday’s Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor
Speedway.
On inferior tires and with a fuel tank bordering on empty, Kenseth won
a heated battle against Kahne to claim victory, after Kahne moved into
the second position on Lap 473 of 500.
The victory was Kenseth’s fifth of the year and it guaranteed the
driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at least a Wild Card spot
in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Juan Pablo Montoya ran third followed by Brian Vickers and Joey Logano.
The victory was Kenseth’s third at Bristol and the 29th of his career,
but it was anything but a cakewalk. Several times in the closing laps
Kahne either pulled alongside or nosed ahead of Kenseth’s Toyota but
was unable to complete a pass.
"I think, at the end of the day, I just don’t wreck people," Kahne said
plaintively after the race, clearly disappointed that he had failed to
win with possibly a superior car at the end.
Kenseth can thank Kahne for his restraint, especially in light of four
incidents earlier this season in which JGR drivers have wrecked Kahne’s
No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
"When he got there with about eight (laps) to go, I knew we had our
work cut out for us," Kenseth said. "I didn’t know what would happen.
The interesting thing about this track is that there’s only one really
fast groove, and I knew I couldn’t let him outside of me
"He almost cleared me into (Turn) 3 one time. I had to drive in really,
really hard to make sure he couldn’t get up in front of me. That’s when
I had that rubbing together off of (Turn) 4. There wasn’t a lot of
extra room there. It was an intense race. Kasey’s got a great
reputation. He’s a really hard racer, really talented and he’s also a
really fair racer.
"I thought he was going to pass me. I thought he was going to get
around me there but we had just enough to hang on."
Kahne felt he couldn’t have cleared Kenseth’s car without putting both
drivers in jeopardy.
"Yeah, I thought Matt did a good job of just running as hard as he
could as close to the wall as possible, which helped him a lot, and
then I was just trying to gain speed," Kahne said. "I had a better car.
We were on the right strategy and I just couldn't clear him. There was
a couple shots I took and I had to have been close, but I could feel
him on the right side of my car and I just didn't clear him.
"I didn't figure out how to get by. It's disappointing not to win here.
I thought we had the best car the last 200 laps and it was a lot of
work. We didn't start the best, but (crew chief) Kenny (Francis) made a
lot of good calls and our strategy was perfect at the end. It was a
great night for us, good for the points and things, but yeah, I wish I
could have figured out how to get by him."
For the rest of this article and more, click here
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