A Happy Birthday to Matt Kenseth indeed. While most of us are happy with a new tie or our favorite home-cooked meal complete with cake, Kenseth celebrated his 41st Birthday with his 25th Sprint Cup Series victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. What made this one different than his other 24 victories was it was his first time driving a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. In typical Kenseth fashion, you barely saw any clue of him until the clock began to wind down on the season’s third race. The move that put Kenseth in a position to win was made on pit road. On the race’s last pit stop, Kenseth crew made a fuel-only stop while all other contenders elected to put on two tires. This allowed Kenseth to restart the race up front and once Kenseth was in the clean air no one was going to pass him. Give credit to his Crew Chief Jason Ratcliff with a big assist on this victory. A great call in the pit.
Let’s take a closer look at this week’s winner. Kenseth’s racing career began very early in his life. When he was 13 he made a deal with his father, Roy. The elder Kenseth would buy a stock car and race and Matt would work on the car until he was old enough to race it himself. At the age of 16 Matt began his driving career, driving the car his father had purchased. Matt began to race at Madison International Speedway, and a star was born.
Perhaps Kenseth’s biggest legacy is the current point system and The Chase format. Kenseth’s 2003 championship was heavily criticized. Kenseth had won only one race of the 36 during the season and had led the standings for 33 weeks despite getting that one lone victory. As a matter of fact, in 2004 the term “The Matt Kenseth Rule” was coined to describe the new point format adopted in the 2004 season, which placed a higher value on winning races.
Kenseth was born in Cambridge, Wisconsin and now resides in Mooresville, North Carolina. He is married to Katie Martin who also is from Cambridge. Matt has a son Ross from a previous relationship and Matt and Katie have two daughters, Kaylin and Grace. Ross appears to be a chip off the old block as he began racing as a 16 year old, winning a late model touring series in 2009.
Much talk continues to be on the Gen 6 cars and their performance. On the FOX television broadcast they opened with a discussion of the Denny Hamlin $25,000 fine by NASCAR for criticizing the performance of the car. Shockingly, both Darrell and Michael Waltrip supported NASCAR. I really believed that Darrell, who is no stranger to taking on NASCAR, would offer a fair and balanced report on the situation between NASCAR and Hamlin. What we got was another one of NASCAR boys circling the wagon in the face of mounting criticism of the tone deaf NASCAR officials. Was Darrell worried about NASCAR’s influence on his job? Was FOX worried about his influence on its NASCAR TV ratings? Does he have something personal against Denny Hamlin? Joe Gibbs Racing? Whatever it was, Darrell played the role of a NASCAR propagandist perfectly. We’ve come to expect more from him and were left utterly disappointed. It was a bad job by the Waltrip’s.
One last thought on the Gen 6 car’s performance at Las Vegas. The car ran an awful lot like the Car of Tomorrow (COT) on the mile and a half track. There were multiple grooves available and passing was plentiful. One only has to look at what Kyle Busch did as he moved through the field twice. My main gripe, and this might be more tire related then car related, was the difference in how the car preformed in clean air. An inferior car in clean air on old tires was still faster than a better car with newer tires running in traffic. We saw that a lot last season. There still is work to be done. I have no doubt that NASCAR will work on this even though they won’t admit it or allow their racers to speak freely about it. On to Bristol for some beating and banging NASCAR style.
My picks for Bristol.
- Kyle Busch
- Brad Keselowski
- Denny Hamlin
Feel free to leave your comments below. You can follow me @JimLaplante and the site @LastWordonSport.
Interested in blogging for LastWordOnSports? If so, check out our “Join Our Team” page to find out how
Photo Credit: article.wn.com
