Matt Kenseth, driver of the #20 The Home Depot / Husky Toyota, celebrates with his crew in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on May 11, 2013
Photo – Rainier Ehrhardt/Getty Images

A year of revival is now fully underway for Matt Kenseth as he picks up another win in Saturday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500. The win is his third of the season including, Las Vegas and Kansas and this is arguably the best-ever start to a season for Kenseth.

Why is this season different from all others for Kenseth? Matt Kenseth is now at Joe Gibbs Racing and making the most of this new relationship. Both parties want to continue their success as the season progresses.

The race wasn’t a total domination by Kenseth, but he made a pass at the right time which led him to victory at the track ‘too tough to tame.’

For the first half of the race, it was a Busch brothers’ show as Kurt led early from the pole and Kyle inherited the lead on lap 74 and held it for much of the race. After a round of green flag pit stops, Jeff Gordon became the new leader, but Kyle Busch quickly took the lead again on lap 202.

The normally rough-and-tough Darlington wasn’t as present in this race as in years past, but in the last 100-laps, the hard racing action came back to life. Cautions breed cautions and the first in a chain of yellow-flags came out with 66 laps remaining, when Regan Smith spun on the backstretch. Just a few laps after the restart, a wreck broke out on the frontstretch, when a gaggle of cars tried to race through Darlington’s narrow lanes. The next wreck came when Casey Mears, with a tap from behind, slid up into the outside wall, then back down the track into the inside wall, hitting with a lot of force and causing significant damage to his car. Also suffering damage in this incident, was Brad Keselowski.

Another yellow-flag flew with 39-laps remaining, after Josh Wise spun in turn three, came down, then back up the track into the wall. David Reutimann had nowhere to go and piled into Wise causing some damage to his No.83 car. Throughout the chain of cautions, Busch managed to keep the lead; but Kasey Kahne was lurking and finally took his opportunity on the ensuing restart.

After this restart, Busch and Kahne battled for the lead for multiple laps, when the two tried to enter turn one side-by-side, Busch raced to the inside of Kahne and the air from Busch’s car did something weird. The air off Busch’s car made Kahne loose, causing him to slide into the outside wall, bringing out the fifth caution of the night. Neither driver was happy with the situation, with Kahne blaming Busch for the incident. Actually, Busch never tapped Kahne, with no evidence of contact on either drivers’ car. Kahne was able to continue in the race and Busch was about to have another battle for the lead on his hands.

Lurking behind Busch was Kenseth, and on the restart with 13-laps remaining, Kenseth raced around Busch for the lead – the last lead change of the night. Kenseth continued with ease in remaining laps to take the Darlington victory.

This win was a big one for Kenseth, with the Southern 500 being an event every racer dreams of winning. Throughout the night, it took consistency for Kenseth to pull into victory lane and his endurance for the entire race made this win possible.

Kenseth is in next weekend’s All-Star Race, along with many other drivers as NASCAR returns home to Charlotte for a few weeks of exciting racing under the lights.

Results via ESPN.com