Matt Kenseth
.533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway
Bristol, Tenn.
Race Schedule
Saturday, Aug. 25
NNCS: Sharpie 500 - 8:00 PM Eastern - ESPN/PRN
Friday, Aug. 24
NBS: Food City 250 - 8:00 PM Eastern - ESPN2/PRN
FAST FACTS
Matt Kenseth has an average finish of 5.7 in the past 11 races at Bristol, tops among all drivers during that span.
Kenseth has seven top-fives and nine top-10 finishes in the past 11 races at Bristol, which leads all drivers during that span.
Kenseth has led 532 of a possible 1,000 laps in the past two August night races at Bristol (53.2%).
Kenseth has completed all but four laps in the past 11 races at Bristol (5,500 of 5,504); the second most during that span (Earnhardt Jr. 5,502).
For his career, Kenseth has led 742 laps at Bristol, which is the highest number of laps led at any track during his career. Second on the list is Rockingham with 413 laps.
Kenseth’s career average finish for Bristol is 10.7, the fifth highest among the 23 tracks he has competed on throughout his career.
Matt Kenseth – NNCS Advance
Team: No. 17 DEWALT Ford Fusion
Crew Chief: Robbie Reiser
Chassis: RK-471 Brand new
RK-457 Only outing: Martinsville, April ’07 – finished 10th
Kenseth on racing at Bristol Motor Speedway:
“Bristol has such a cool atmosphere. The place is full of people. You have 150,000 people around a half-mile racetrack, it’s a Saturday night and the crowd’s kind of rowdy. Usually there’s a lot of action going on and there’s always some accidents and there’s some people getting mad. It’s kind of a cool, crazy, party-type atmosphere and it’s a special place to be able to win at. There’s a lot of cool history there. Darryl Waltrip has won a ton of races there, Dale Earnhardt too, and there are a lot of cool races and cool highlights throughout the years that’s come from there.
“The track is definitely a lot different than what it was. I really enjoyed the old configuration. It had a lot of character and a lot of unique parts about the track that you had to negotiate and it’s a lot different now. We’re going to have to relearn that and hopefully we can get a handle on it like we did the old one.”
Crew Chief Robbie Reiser on racing at Bristol Motor Speedway:
“We really don’t know what to expect from the new track configuration. I’m sure Friday will be a busy day for everyone trying different things. The Busch cars tested up here but they had rain for most of the day which limited track time. I don’t really think it would’ve helped much anyway because the COT is so different.
“Bristol was a pretty easy place for us to set up for until this year. We had brought the same car for about 11 or 12 races and it was pretty good each time. So, when we use to show up at Bristol, we were pretty sure of what we had and that it was going to be pretty good. Now, we don’t really know how it’s going to play out. We struggled a little bit in the spring with the new car here and now the track is different, we won’t really know what we got. But, no one else knows what they have either.”
