Kenseth Seals up Rookie of the Year with Ninth Place Finish

Matt Kenseth qualified 23rd for the NAPA 500 at Atlanta, the final event on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series for the year 2000. As the race got underway, the teams were concerned about how their cars would handle given the fact that the race was postponed until Monday and the competitors hadn't practiced since Saturday morning.

The No. 17 car was extremely loose early in the race, but both Kenseth and crew chief Robbie Reiser believed the car would tighten up as the race went on. Despite the handling condition, Kenseth climbed his way to the 19th position by lap 10.

Kenseth pitted for the first time under caution on lap 36 and returned to the track in 14th place. He pitted again not long after that on lap 54 for four tires and a chassis adjustment. Shortly after the restart on lap 57, Kenseth noticed the car become a great deal looser as he slipped back to 17th place.

Reiser called Kenseth to the pits on laps 73 and 111, and made chassis and tire pressure adjustments during both stops. Finally, the chassis began to come around and Kenseth radioed in that the car felt the best that it had all day on lap 121.

Kenseth noticed heavy build up on his windshield during the race that was a by-product of the heavy rains that caused dirt to rise up through the porous racing surface. Every competitor found tire rubber and dirt building up quickly on their windshields and the DEWALT team worked hard to keep Kenseth's clean.

Approximately 150 laps into the race, Kenseth found the car improving further. He climbed to ninth by lap 147, seventh by lap 151, sixth by lap 153 and fifth ten laps later. Kenseth got to a race-high of fourth place by lap 168 by out-dueling Dale Earnhardt.

Shortly thereafter, however, Kenseth noticed a vibration in the right rear of the car. He began to become concerned about the tire wear and pitted under green on lap 186 for four tires and fuel. He once again grabbed the fourth spot as the rest of the lead lap cars cycled through their pit stops.

The car began to loosen up again, so much so, that Kenseth hit the wall exiting turn four on lap 239. He pitted for tires one lap later and the team noticed that the cords were showing on the right rear indicating that the setup was hard on the tire. Kenseth found himself running in 10th place as the leaders cycled through their green flag pit stops. However, he was running not far in front of the leader at the time, Ward Burton, and lost a lap to the leaders shortly thereafter on lap 275.

Kenseth held on the rest of the race and passed Dale Jarrett in the late going for the ninth position and that's where he finished. He captured the coveted rookie of the year award over second place Dale Earnhardt Jr. He also finished as the highest competitor from Roush Racing. The rest of the Roush contingent, Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch and Mark Martin, finished 12th, 36th and 40th, respectively. Jerry Nadeau won the race and captured his first career Winston Cup victory. Kenseth finishes the season in 14th place in the championship point standings.

"It was a good race for us," Kenseth said. "We just were too hard on the right rear tire to compete for the win. We were running in fourth for a while and thought maybe we might be able to stay there, but we faded a little. The guys did a great job in the pits and they were fast all day. We made good adjustments during the stops, especially early in the race, to get us from 20th up to the top 10. Overall, it was a good strong ninth place finish."

"We had a great season. It's a real honor to be on top of this rookie class. There are a lot of really talented rookie drivers this year with bright futures in front of them. I owe this to the entire DEWALT team. We had ups and downs like we expected from our rookie season. But we also showed a good amount of consistency and that's what it takes to win the rookie of the year."