The NASCAR champion has lacked his usual speed since returning, but is hopeful going into Midwestern haunts in Indianapolis and Kentucky.
NASCAR’s offseason rumor mill is often given the label of “Silly Season”. Matt Kenseth believes that, in this most unusual and chaotic calendar year, the moniker could apply far beyond the whispers and speculation of auto racing free agency.
“This whole thing has been silly all year long, pretty much since the calendar changed,” Kenseth said with a smile when addressing reporters in a Zoom conference call. “Especially since March.”
Kenseth is one of many notable names up for discussion in the movement process. The 2003 NASCAR Cup Series champion returned from retirement earlier this year to take over the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet after the firing of Kyle Larson.
Kenseth got off to a good start in his new surroundings, earning a top-ten finish in the return for both he and the circuit at Darlington Raceway. He has yet to return since, done in by sheer bad luck and unforced errors alike. Finishes of 11th and 12th at the Pocono doubleheader last weekend marked the first times that Kenseth finished on the lead lap since the Bristol race in late May.
Armed with a “week-to-week” mindset, the current exploits of the No. 42 is all Kenseth is focused on right now. He was keen to reap the positive benefits last week’s exploits at the so-called “Tricky Triangle” had to offer.
“The fun part of racing is results and winning, gaining on it, and doing that stuff,” Kenseth said. “I haven’t performed the way I’ve expected to perform up to this point. (But) I’ve really enjoyed working with that whole team over at Chip Ganassi Racing and driving a Camaro.”
“I’m taking it one week at a time, trying to get the results that we know that we’re capable of and kind of going from there. There’s a lot of difficult things to navigate in today’s world, racing included. So we’re doing it one week at a time and hopefully, start to get some results, the ones we feel like we’re capable of.”
The only detailed look into the future Kenseth provided was a small hope that NASCAR, whose most recent track expansion was the Kentucky entry in 2011, would run a Cup Series race on the Milwaukee Mile, a track that’s about an hour from his Cambridge hometown. The Mile had previously hosted Xfinity and Truck Series events through 2009.
Kenseth perhaps expressed the most disappointment over the fact that his subpar showings would be unable to help Kurt Busch, his past and present teammate.
Busch, driver of Gannasi’s No. 1 Chevrolet, is set to make 700th Cup Series start on Sunday. He and Kenseth each earned their NASCAR start under the watch of team owner Jack Roush. The two combined for 38 Cup Series wins in Roush’s Fords and brought home consecutive titles in 2003-04. Busch’s most recent NASCAR win at last year’s Kentucky event, where he held off his brother Kyle by 0.076 seconds at the finish.
“Your hope with teammates is to help make both cars stronger and that’s always the goal,” Kenseth said. “He’s always been a great teammate from the first time around to this time around. It kind of surprised me when I found it was his 700th start. It doesn’t seem like that long, really.”
“He’s a great teammate, a great race car driver. I was there for his first start and I’m glad I get to be here for his 700th, as well.”
Stuck in 30th-place thanks to his late arrival, Kenseth nonetheless has a playoff waiver should he win a race and more or less lock up a de facto postseason berth this fall. Two big opportunities await, as the Cup Series descends upon two familiar spots for the Cambridge, Wisconsin native.
Sunday marks NASCAR’s annual visit to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as Kenseth will start 21st for the Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 Powered by Big Machine Records (4 p.m. ET, NBC). Kentucky Speedway awaits next week in the form of the Quaker State 400 as the regular season races toward its late August conclusion at Daytona.
Kenseth has completed all but one lap over eight Kentucky starts (2011-18). As for Indianapolis, he was intrigued by the Xfinity Series running on the in-house road course on Saturday but expressed interest in keeping the current oval settings.
One look at Kenseth’s statsheet makes it no shock as to why he’s feeling that way. His cars have finished no worse than 12th over his last six Indianapolis starts and even won the second stage of his most recent appearance when filling in at his old squad of Roush Fenway Racing in 2018.
Thus, the next pair of stops on the high-speed tour present good opportunities to get back on the right track.
“I feel like at Pocono, even though the results weren’t spectacular, off the charts, we really ran better. I think we learned some things about the car, and how I’m feeling. That might not transfer to other places, but I feel like we’ve been learning every week.”
“It’s been a steep learning curve (but) I think we’re ahead of where we were last month. There’s a lot of areas that we’ve been able to sharpen up on, mostly on my end. Each and every week, we’ll keep going at it, and hopefully, the results get better.”
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMagsÂ