Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
At Kansas Speedway for the Go Bowling 400 Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry, ended a season drought with a top-five finish. This was his best finish so far this season, which has been an utterly disappointing one so far.
He started the season leading on the last lap of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway only to drop back to 14th as the race ended. The Wisconsin native luck would not change as the next weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway he would get a penalty for illegal fueling, putting him a lap down and out of contention. He crashed out at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, followed by a pair of pit road penalties at Auto Club Speedway. At Martinsville Speedway it looked as his misfortune would end as he ran up front most of the race, but fell back to outside the top-10 on a late race restart. Then tire issues at both Texas Motor Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway resulted in poor finishes.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver would finally get a top-10 at Richmond which looked to bring some much needed encouragement for the next race, but Talladega Superspeedway wouldn’t be so kind and took a bite out of him as his car flipped in the air during a crash.
Kansas was the breath of fresh air Kenseth needed as he ran in the top-10 all night, and by staying out on the caution with 30 laps to go with Kyle Busch he was able to stay up front to finish fourth when the checkered flags flew.
“It’s our best finish of the year so that’s the bright side,” he said. “I’m sort of happy for Kyle and Adam (Stevens), but seriously happy for everyone at JGR.
“We were about a second to fourth-place car most of the day. I thought we were as good at the No. 18 if we could have had the position, but it was tough to stick on that bottom. I tried something different there to try to lay back and get the pass, but once they were single file I couldn’t go get them.
“We were just a little off, but these guys had great pit stops and great adjustments and we seem to be getting closer.”
Next up is the AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway. Kenseth in 34 starts at the Monster Mile has an impressive 22 top-10s and 15 top-fives along with two wins. The race will be run on Sunday May 15th.
