Sam's Town 300 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

MATT KENSETH Press Conference

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Pennzoil Fusion (finished 2nd) – PLEASE DESCRIBE THE GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED FINISH, AND YOU SAID YOU HAD A GOOD RUN ON THE 9 CAR. “Well, I did a little bit. He was probably careful getting into one. The end of the run, before the last caution came out, we were catching him a little bit. I was going to be probably to his bumper then, I don’t think I could’ve passed him. I was too tight. We got a decent restart and got to him, I just couldn’t get by him. He was real strong off turn two – that’s where he was able to get by Kevin for the lead – and he just would run so hard off that corner up high, I just couldn’t make it stick. So I kind of rolled into him in the middle and got underneath him, but I couldn’t get off the corner as good as him.”

YOU MENTIONED SOMETHING ABOUT THE TRACK BEING DIRTY AFTER THE LAST CAUTION. WHAT WAS THE ISSUE? “When they had that wreck down there, I don’t know, I can’t see the best, but I didn’t see any oil down there and they started dropping oil dry, so I don’t know if they were after TV time or what. But that truck driver, I don’t know what he was doing. He was way up dumping oil dry and then he was on the apron and there was zigzag over here and it was kind of confusing. And we were going to go green a few times, and there was a lot of gravel down there. I saw it, I just got in the corner too low and Kevin got kind of sideways up there in the middle and I got real loose getting into three and that’s kind of how Kasey snuck by me there. Everybody else made it through there, I just made it through a little worse than everybody else. But there was a lot of stuff down there, it seemed like.”

COULD YOU RUN THE HIGH LINE? “Nah, I couldn’t really make it work up there. I mean, I was talking about that on my radio because I was hoping they were listening, but he was the making the top work good but I couldn’t really make it happen. I went up there by accident a few times and it was decent, but there was so much gravel up right up above the second groove, if you got up too high, it was going to be bad. So, Kasey made that work, and he makes it work a lot of places. I could hardly turn on the bottom. I really couldn’t turn up there.”

DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING TODAY THAT WILL BE OF REAL BENEFIT TOMORROW, GIVEN THE TEMPERATURES? “Just looking at tire wear and stuff like that, and just what the track ended up doing. It rained last night and it was real green in Cup practice this morning, and probably just a little bit of gauge on how much it is going to change. But other than that I don’t really learn a lot from the Busch races.”

ON THAT FINAL RESTART, DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD ANYTHING LEFT FOR THE 9 CAR? IT LOOKED LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE WAS FADING. “That was it, that was the best I could do, and we came up short. It’s hard – unless he muscles up and spins the tires, it’s pretty hard to pass somebody in two laps in a green-white-checkered, I think, because the tires are all old and hot and your tires are done handling good and all that, so it is hard. I thought maybe I might have a shot if I could get way down on the white line getting into one and kind of get the apron a little bit and get turned through the middle. He was fading a little bit there, but you get them cautions and tires cool off and it kind of equals everybody back out for a few laps. I knew it was going to be tough, but I was hoping to get a shot.”

CAN YOU COMMENT FURTHER ON GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED FINISHES? ARE THEY WORTH IT? OR, WOULD YOU JUST BE AS HAPPY IF NASCAR THREW THE CHECKERED FLAG? “I think it’s right to have green-white-checkered as long as the last caution is warranted. But I think if there’s a caution at the end, we should finish under green.”