Kenseth ends skid
FORT WORTH, Texas — Matt Kenseth can quit wondering. He is still good enough to win.
After going 76 races without a win, Kenseth finally got back into Victory Lane with a dominating run at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday night when the entire Roush Fenway team was outstanding.
“As you start to get a little older and start looking up at the results, it’s been over two years since we won,” Kenseth said. “You can’t help but think, is the way it’s going to go? Are we going to keep trickling backwards?”
Kenseth led 169 of 334 laps at the 1Z\x-mile, high-banked track for his 19th career victory, his first since California in February 2009 when he won the first two races of that season. Since his other win at Texas in 2002, Kenseth had four runner-up finishes, including last fall behind Denny Hamlin, and six other top-10 finishes at the track.
“It has been a long time,” Kenseth said. “I have lost a lot of close ones at this track. It feels good to be able to close it out.”
This time, the No. 17 Roush Fenway Ford was only trailing late behind Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch when both of those drivers were out of sequence on stops and trying to stretch fuel in hopes of catching a caution. Lucky for Kenseth, there were no yellow flags at the wrong time.
Kenseth went back ahead to stay with 13 laps to go when Busch had to make his final stop and give up a 8.2-second lead. Kenseth finished 8.315 seconds ahead of Clint Bowyer on warm and windy night for the first Texas race under the lights.
“One of the hottest times I’ve ever had in a car,” Bowyer said. “More than anything, my feet were burning up.”
Edwards, Kenseth’s teammate, joked that he was “hopped up on Pepto Bismol” because of an upset stomach from something he ate earlier in the day. He also dealt with a loose car all night, but still finished third to take over the series points lead by nine over Kyle Busch.
“I was a little sick this morning. I thought I was alright. But my stomach was messed up about 50 laps in. My mom made a dish and I think one of the ingredients was bad,” Edwards said. “We were trying really hard to get the car right and we never did. That’s why I was happy with third.”
It was a weekend sweep in the Lone Star State for car owner Jack Roush after Edwards won the Nationwide race Friday.
