Photo Credit: Noel Lanier/OnPitRoad.om
Following a sixth place finish at New Hampshire in the spring and a fifth place finish at Chicagoland Speedway to start off the Chase for the Sprint Cup, it isn’t a surprise that Matt Kenseth is looking forward to Sunday’s Sylvania 300. It’s also not a surprise considering that the organization that he’s driving for, Joe Gibbs Racing, has won nine of the last 11 races on the schedule.
“I think as an organization we’re really strong right now,” Kenseth commented on Friday. “There’s always improvements to be made. You can always be doing better. No matter how good or bad you’re doing, you always look to improve. You always try to look over everything that’s going on and try to figure out how to do that better. Certainly the last few months, the JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) Toyotas have been strong, so hopefully we can continue to improve and continue to keep getting better the next nine weeks and keep getting some results.”
Given the statistics and the fact that JGR placed all four of their drivers in the top-10 in opening race of the Chase at Chicagoland Speedway, Joe Gibbs Racing is considered the favourite right now. Some have even placed Penske Racing up there with them, with how both Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have ran. Despite the fact, Kenseth wouldn’t pinpoint a possibility of the two organizations dominating the Chase, citing the speed that Chevrolet has shown with Hendrick Motorsports and Stewart-Haas Racing.
“The 4 (Kevin Harvick) and the 41 (Kurt Bush) were unbelievably fast,” he stated. “The 48 (Jimmie Johnson) was way better than they’ve been the last few months, so you just don’t know.”
For that reason, Kenseth says that they’re keeping focused on their program and continuing to try and get better, by putting their best foot forward each week. Though to improve, you have to sometimes try things and sometimes, those things don’t worry. So moving forward, teams have work the balance of trying things, but also stringing together the finishes to keep moving forward round by round.
“It’s easy at times to get stuck on doing the same things that’s working for you, that maybe worked for you a few months ago because you ran good and had success. But you also have to be looking to get better,” Kenseth explained. “That’s always a balance. Things change so fast in this sport. You see teams run really good and then they get behind for a while, they get ahead for a while. You kind of see that, so I think you’ve got to keep the same approach all the time, keep trying to get better no matter how far ahead or behind you think you are. I think you’ve always got to keep trying new things, keep trying to develop new things to keep making your team stronger. Certainly that’s a balance.”
So far, it seems as though Matt Kenseth has that balanced out well as he enters this weekend as the points leader, and was 10th quickest in the first practice.
