Kenseth Makes it Four Wins in First Race to the Chase

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Matt Kenseth, driver of the #20 Dollar General Toyota, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway on June 30, 2013 Photo - Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Matt Kenseth, driver of the #20 Dollar General Toyota, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway on June 30, 2013
Photo – Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Pit strategy enables Matt Kenseth to Sprint Cup Series best – a fourth win

After postponing the Quaker State 400 from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, due to rain at Kentucky Speedway, Matt Kenseth and his team raced to their fourth victory of the season.

On a restart on lap 247 – 20 laps short of the race total – Kenseth took advantage of a spin by the race’s dominant #48 car with Jimmie Johnson.  Kenseth took over the lead by taking no tires during his earlier pit stop on lap 242, collecting his 28th career victory.

With intermittent clouds and sunshine on Sunday replacing the persistent rain of Saturday,  the 17th Sprint Cup Series race of the season was radically changed by the handling characteristics cars set up to race at night and impounded since qualifying on Friday.

But at the end of the day, it was crew chief Jason Ratcliff‘s strategy call to forego tires on the last pit stop that put his #20 car in place to cross the finish line first. Kenseth agreed afterward that it was the percentage play of the day. 

“I thought in my head we had about a five percent chance of winning, if something didn’t happen to the 48,” Kenseth said. “But if we could have got two tires and came out behind the 48, unless he broke, I thought we had almost zero percent chance of winning.

 

“When you look at it like that, it was a great call. Circumstances helped a little bit to have the quick restarts, everybody’s got their rights (right-side tires), and then we had another caution (for Johnson’s spin), and that gave us some time to cool our tires back down and definitely got rolling faster in that second restart.

 

“So I mean, obviously you look back right now, it’s a great call. It was the only one that gave us a chance to win the race.”

 

Closing on Kenseth in the last laps, was runner-up Jamie McMurray, but he ran out of laps and time. Running third was Clint Bowyer, followed by Joey Logano and Kyle Busch, rounding out the top-five drivers. Johnson, the series points leader, rallied to a ninth-place finish and extended his lead to 38-points over Carl Edwards.  
The race was Johnson’s to win as he dominated the lead for most of the race. That is until Brian Vickers blew a tire, then slammed the outside wall on lap 241. During the ninth yellow of the race, Johnson took two fresh tires and lost the lead to Kenseth who took no tires on pit road.
On the later restart, Johnson felt that Kenseth slowed and failed to keep up with pace car speed approaching the restart zone. But after the leader crossed the finish line, Johnson was racing hard for the second spot in a four-wide battle with Joey Logano to his inside and lost control when the other nearby cars took the air off his spoiler and sucked him around and into a spin.
“We were kind of in an awkward situation in that restart there,” Johnson said in his post-race interview with reporters. “And then we were like three- and four-wide going in the corner, then something happened with the air and just kind of turned me around.
“Unfortunate but at least we rallied back for a good finish. The No. 20 (Kenseth) broke the pace car speed which you aren’t suppose to, but they aren’t calling guys on that, so I need to start trying that in the future.”
Kenseth said he first heard of Johnson’s comments about the restart in victory lane.
“I had no idea what had happened to him or what I possibly could have done to upset him,” Kenseth said. “When we got ready for the restart, we were on the top (outside lane), and we were the leader, so anywhere in that (restart) box we can start the race.
“When the pace car peeled off, I felt like I went the same pace, I didn’t check my tach when the pace car went off, to see if we were going the same pace, but I think you can look at the data to see I didn’t slow down. …When I got to the box, I went. I certainly didn’t feel like I did anything wrong from where I was. But if you’re dominating all day, and then you have a problem at the end, I imagine it’s frustrating. I’ve been there too.”
But perhaps even more frustrated was Kenseth’s teammate Denny Hamlin, who blew a right front tire for the second time in the race on lap 147, propelling him into the outside wall near the exit of turn four. The impact left an immediate concern, recalling Hamlin’s wreck in late March causing a compression fracture of Hamlin’s first lumbar vertebra, forcing him to the sidelines for four races.
Hamlin was sent to the infield care center, as this wreck was a similar impact to the one he sustained during a wreck in practice last year at Kansas. Afterward, he said his back was unaffected by the crash.
“My back feels good – really good, I’d say,” Hamlin said. “It feels the same as it did this morning. Really, that was the least of the concerns after this hit.”
But from the beginning, Chase contenders had plenty of concerns leaving fans with lots to talk about after the race.
Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Miller Lite Ford, is involved in an incident during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway on June 30, 2013 Photo - Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Miller Lite Ford, is involved in an incident during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway on June 30, 2013
Photo – Andy Lyons/Getty Images

One lap after a restart on lap 47, Kurt Busch knocked the No. 2 of reigning champion and defending race winner, Brad Keselowski, across the track. After turning his No. 78 down on the apron near the start/finish line, Busch hit a bump in the asphalt, and shot up the track into Keselowski’s car.

As Keselowski’s Blue Deuce slid across the track, Greg Biffle slammed into the Penske Ford, coming to a stop as flames erupted under the hood. Also involved in the seven-car pile-up included Paul Menard, Dave Blaney, Travis Kvapil and Landon Cassill.
“The track just threw me right back into him,” Busch radioed to his crew after the wreck. “It was all my fault.”
Keselowski agreed, the contact was unintentional, but questioned Busch’s judgement in running on the apron in the first place.
“I know he didn’t intentionally wreck me, but it’s just one of those things,” Keselowski said after leaving the infield care center. “A chain of events with the way the cars drive, and the track has that really bad bump down there, and we all know it. There’s no reason to go down there, but he still did…
“We were trying to get patient, because it looks like we’ll get the whole race in before rain, and there’s no reason to drive like an animal. Apparently, I’m the only one that got that memo.”
Keselowski’s wreck was violent, but the incident preceding it was simply bizarre.
After a restart on lap 36 – following a competition caution on lap 31 – Hamlin’s No. 11 sailed toward the outside wall with a flat right front tire.
Steadying his car, Hamlin drove to an access road inside the oval, headed toward pit road when the rubber from his flat tire broke loose and flew onto the racing surface, right in front of polesitter and race leader Dale Earnhardt Jr.
After bouncing off Earnhardt’s car nose, the tire rubber clipped the right front corner of the No. 48 of Johnson, who at the time was running second. Although Johnson’s car avoided any significant damage, the impact of the tire did damage the nose of Earnhardt’s car, bending the front splitter out-of-place.
Steve Letarte, crew chief of the No. 88 team spent the rest of the race trying to deal with the damage and salvaged a 12th-place finish.

 

The end of the race left Keselowski down four spots in the standings, now 13th and 14 points behind Logano in 10th place – the last Chase-eligible spot.

Clint Bowyer kept his third place in points and gained ground on Edwards in second with the drivers separated by a mere three-points.

Race Results

Point Standings

 
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