Kenseth, Stenhouse and Edwards Size Up Championship Chances at Dover

 

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT COMING TO DOVER AND MAKING A STATEMENT HERE? “I always love coming to Dover. It’s always been my favorite track. It’s been a track that I really enjoy the challenge of it and I made my first Cup start here a long time ago now, so it’s one I always look forward to. Lately, we’ve been able to do pretty well here. I guess that doesn’t mean a lot for this weekend necessarily, but it has been a good track for us and one I always look forward to.” 

 

HOW IS KATIE DOING? YOU SAID YOU BLAMED YOURSELF THE OTHER DAY. ARE YOU OVER THAT NOW? “Well, I just blame myself for putting her in the car to start with, but, yeah, she’s doing pretty well. She’s about the same. She’s really sore, but getting a little bit better. I’m trying to help as much as I can, but I think it’s hard for her to heal up with two kids and one arm and keep moving, so I think it will be a while but I think she was feeling pretty good yesterday. She’s probably a little bit more sore today.” 

 

WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF JIMMIE JOHNSON’S SITUATION RIGHT NOW BEING 10^TH IN POINTS? SOME SAY HE’S OUT OF IT AND SOME SAY YOU CAN’T COUNT HIM OUT. WHERE DO YOU STAND? “I haven’t really thought about it. I didn’t know he was in a situation. He’s not much worse than me (in the standings). I think he’s been back there before. There are eight races to go, which is a ton of races. We’ll just have to see how he does the rest of the time. I haven’t really thought about it. I’ve had my own problems to think about how we’re gonna do and climb back up there after Chicago. I’ve just really been thinking about our race team and haven’t really looked at the standings and the numbers to see where everybody is because I don’t really care. I’m just working on trying to get us running good and finishing the best we can every week.” 

 

WITH WHAT THEY’VE ACCOMPLISHED WOULD YOU EVER COUNT THEM OUT? “No. I’ve said it for about six or seven years straight now that I think they’re the favorites and they’re the guys until somebody can knock them off and prove otherwise.” 

 

JIMMIE IS 29 BACK AND YOU ARE 26. HOW FAR BACK CAN YOU BE AND STILL CLIMB BACK INTO IT? IS THAT A HUGE HOLE OR IS EVERYBODY STILL IN THIS THING? “I don’t know about everybody, but him being only three points behind me, I hope he’s still in it because if you’re saying he’s out that means we probably are too, but there are still eight races to go. That’s a ton of races. The only way you know whether you can come out of that hole or not depends on how you do and also how everybody else does as well. Even if you win every race and the other guy who is leading finishes second every race, you can’t come out of it, so it depends on how everybody else does, it depends on how you do, obviously, and eight races is a lot of races. I know we have to talk about it every week, but it’s a lot of races. I suspect after this weekend you’ll probably be able to pick a few people that might be out and every week along the line you’ll probably be able to do that, but until you’re mathematically out, I still think you’re basically in it. I don’t spend a lot of time studying the points because the system has always been pretty easy to figure out. The higher you finish, the more points you get and you just go out and race hard and finish as high as you can every week. You can’t control what anybody else does. All you can do is control what you and your race team does and you just put forth the best effort you can every week, get the best finishes you can and hope at the end of the day that you’re up in there and have more points than the rest of them.”

 

RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus/Cargill Ford Mustang – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS STRETCH RUN? “For us, every time I’ve come to Dover we’ve had a better finish. We finished fourth the last race here and had a really fast Mustang, but we just needed a little bit more so if we can make that a little bit better, I think, obviously, we’ll have a good race here but I’m really looking at the last six race tracks. They’re really good race tracks for us. We’ve run really well at the rest of them. Jamie Allison from Ford came in this week and we’ve got a lot of things going. We’re obviously going for the driver’s championship. We’ve got to get Carl the owner’s championship (in Nationwide) and then we’ve got to get Ford the manufacturer’s championship (in Nationwide), so there are a lot of things going. Ford is putting a lot of effort into it and we’ve got a lot of things to accomplish this year and I think we can do it as a race team.” 

 

WHAT DO THINGS LOOK LIKE FOR 2012? WHAT DOES JACK SAY? “We haven’t really talked about it. Right now, my biggest focus is this Nationwide championship. I think I’ve always said after running a couple years in Nationwide I would like to run maybe a partial schedule or something just to kind of get my feet wet. I don’t want to jump into things too quick, but, like I said, I haven’t talked to Jack about it. Right now, our first order of business is getting this Nationwide Series championship wrapped up and once we get that done, maybe we’ll sit down and have some talks about it, but, right now, we haven’t had any talks about it. It was really cool to get our first start at Charlotte in the Wood Brothers car and had a lot of fun and learned a lot. We finished 11^th and qualified ninth, but we didn’t run as strong as I felt like we needed to to really feel ready for it, so there’s just a lot to learn if we do run it, but we’ll have to see where that goes.” 

 

WILL YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE THIS YEAR? “No, nothing this year.” 

 

WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP? “It would mean a lot, it would definitely be my biggest accomplishment ever in my racing career. After the way last year went, struggling so bad the first part of the year and turning it around at the end of the year, it really makes you appreciate where we are right now as a race team. The same guys are on my car as we had last year and it would just mean a lot to everybody at Ford, my family and everybody on this race team to get that championship. We came into the year thinking that we were gonna be able to run for it and now that we’ve got six races left and have a shot at it, it’s exactly where we need to be.” 

 

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR MENTALITY HEADING INTO THESE FINAL FEW RACES OF THE SEASON? “I think you’ve got to do what got you here. We go out each and every week and we feel like we have an opportunity to win. We feel like we bring great race cars to the track and that’s what we do. We go out there, we practice, we work on our car, we don’t worry about what anybody else is doing, we just make our car better and better and we go out and race and try to get the best result that we can. I think you have to be on your game, you have to go out and feel like you can win and try to win because Elliott Sadler is not gonna finish outside of the top 10, so you have to do something better to beat him in this championship. We’ve got to go out and do the same thing we’ve done all year and that’s go out and consistently run in the top five and challenge for some wins.” 

ARE YOU READY TO RUN CUP? “Am I ready? I think you have to have the confidence when you go do it that you’re ready. I don’t lack any confidence. It’s something that I really want to do. I feel like the time that I got to run the Cup car I got to test it at Kentucky in the fuel injection test, so I really feel like the power kind of suits my driving style a little bit being able to play with the throttle and things like that coming from dirt cars and sprint cars, so I feel like the cars maybe suit my style a little bit better than the Nationwide cars, where you have to almost be wide open and on the edge at some of these mile-and-a-halves the whole time, I feel like you can really drive the Cup car. I feel like that part of it I’m ready to do.” 

 

KANSAS IS UP NEXT WEEKEND. WHAT’S YOUR ATTITUDE FOR NEXT WEEK? “I’m really looking forward to Kansas. We got to do the Goodyear tire test there earlier this year, which will hopefully benefit us. Last year, that was one of the good races we really had heading down the homestretch. We ran in the top five and I think we got a penalty and had to go to the back and drove our way back up to the front. We restarted third, I think, on the last restart and got trapped on the bottom and finished sixth, but had a really fast race car and ran really well, so I’m looking forward to getting back there.”

 

 

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – HOW HAS PRACTICE GONE AND WHAT’S YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THIS WEEKEND? “Practices have gone very well. I lost my voice a little bit, so that’s why I sound like this, but practices have gone great. I really love racing here. It’s a fun race track. We were just watching the replays of Matt’s win in the Cup Series earlier this year. We felt like we had a car that could win that race and practice has gone really well today. I feel we picked up right where we left off. We’ve got one of if not the fastest car, so that’s good. Nationwide practice went well. It looks like Brad is really fast and we’re fast too, so we should have a good race there. That should be a lot of fun. Ricky is really fast as well, so I think that’s gonna be a great race. I hope the weather holds off for tomorrow.” 

 

YOU ONLY HAVE ONE WIN THIS YEAR BUT HAVE ONE OF THE BEST FINISHING RECORDS IN THE GARAGE. DO YOU HAVE SOME LONG-TERM STRATEGY OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP VERSUS BIG WIN SEASONS? “Exactly. This is all by design (joking). We said, ‘You know what, we’re not gonna try to win them. We’re just gonna go out and try to lull them into thinking that we’re not able to.’ I think this season has been different than previous seasons in that when you have a dominant car it is very easy to fall victim to someone else’s strategy. I felt like it’s interesting that the only race we’ve won this year we did not dominate. The races that we dominated we weren’t able to win and it all comes down to that last pit stop. Matt and I talked about it after he won the race here earlier this year. I called him and I was a little jealous because he won and our car was so fast and he said, ‘Man, it was an easy situation for us. We were running 10^th all day, so of course we’ll take two tires and go see what we can get,’ and it worked. If you look at Darlington, that Dover race, I know there are a couple other races – Phoenix, we had a dominant car. I think in the end that as long as we can just run well and keep running the way we’re running, and we can learn from the ones we let slip away, I wouldn’t put it past us to win two or three of these races in the Chase. But if we don’t, at least we know that we are running better. But, no, it’s not be design, it’s just the way it is.” 

ARE YOU TRYING TO WAIT FOR EVERYBODY ELSE TO MAKE THEIR MISTAKE AND FALL OUT? “There are two ways to do it, but you kind of have to do them simultaneously. You have to do two things. You have to not make any mistakes, but also go as fast as you can. If you watch guys in just the first two races, guys have put themselves behind through mistakes or miscalculations with fuel and we can do that just as easily as anyone, but our goal is not to. At the same time, we are coming here to win these races and if I have a shot to win this on Sunday, then that’s what I’m going for. We’re not holding back anything is the only way to put it. We’re going as fast as we can every week.” 

 

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO FINISH AHEAD OF THE 48 THIS WEEKEND? “It’s important to beat them every week, I think. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that of all the cars that you want to finish in front of, you want to finish in front of those guys the most because the last five years they’ve been the guys to beat at the end. But we aren’t fixating on them because if you look, there are guys that are quietly mounting some pretty good charges. Tony isn’t doing it quite so quietly, but he’s a guy that no one was really talking about as a championship threat until a couple of weeks ago. Brad has been really fast. It looked like Kevin and the 29 car were really good in practice and I don’t think he’s historically very good here, so anything can happen. The way these pit calls are going at the end of these races, if you look at what we were talking about earlier, if it comes down to the last pit stop, anyone in the top 15 could snooker everybody and go win this race, so I guess what I’m saying is, yeah, it feels good to beat Jimmie, but I’m trying not to focus on him because he might not be the guy to beat at the end of the Chase. He might be the wrong person to focus on.” 

 

IS THE WINNER OF THIS CHASE GOING TO BE MORE LUCKY THAN GOOD? “I guess the fewer races that you determine the championship by the more luck is involved, but we don’t have a point system like we used to. We have a Chase and that’s what we’ve got and I don’t think it’s luck. I don’t think a pit call is luck. I think it’s easier to make that risky call when you’re in 10^th and you haven’t done anything all day and you think, ‘Hey, why not? Let’s take two tires or no tires or let’s gamble.’ It is easier, but, yes, I do feel like we’re at a time in this sport right now where the fastest car probably wins a lesser percentage of the races than they used to because it is harder to pass and it is more dependent on your strategy.” 

 

IS THAT A GOOD THING FOR THE SPORT? “You can always say ‘if’. There is an ‘if’ for anything. If the pavement at Darlington was like it used to be, there’ s no way you could stay out on tires and win the race. If we weren’t so aero dependent, there’s no way you could get two tires here and hold people off for 35 laps. I mean, it’s just the way the racing is and everybody races under the same rules, so I’m not gonna live in the past and put the guys down because they won a race by out-strategizing us. That’s not the right way to look at it. What I have to do is figure out how to win these races no matter what, whether it’s strategy or beating them on and off pit road. You look at what Brad did in the night race at Bristol, taking advantage of the pit stall. You could look at that and say, ‘Maybe he shouldn’t have won that race, or he really should have because they did a good job of picking a pit stall and executing that.’ I think with our racing now the winner has to do more things right and there are more things that can take the fastest car and put them back in fifth or sixth. I don’t know if I’m answering that right, but you guys see it every week. You don’t know who is going to win.” 

 

IF YOU KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO GET A DECENT FINISH ARE YOU MORE LIABLE NOT TO TAKE A GAMBLE, AND ARE YOU MORE OF A GAMBLER THAN BOB OSBORNE? “I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t even know what the gamble is. When the caution comes out I don’t know how far we can make it. I don’t know how fast guys are running on two tires, so it really ends up being in the crew chief’s hands and it’s really tough on them. I’d say that since I’ve been racing these cars I’ve always been the guy that says, ‘Hey, I don’t care if we lose a couple of spots, get me four tires and I’ll make it up. I’ll go pass these guys,’ so it has taken a little bit of a change for me to just say, ‘Hey, two tires is OK.’ It’s hard for me to not key that button and say, ‘Hey, just give me four and we’ll make it work.’ So in that respect I’m less of a gambler than I need to be.” 

 

IT’S GOING TO BE 25 DEGREES COOLER ON SUNDAY. WILL THAT MEAN ANY CHANGES ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL TOWARDS YOUR CAR? “The only thing is the sun went away. I’m just taking a guess at it, but I bet the track temp is probably similar right now with the warmer outside air temperature and no sun as it will be on Sunday, so we’re kind of banking on it being similar.” 

 

DO YOU HAVE TO THROW THE CREW CHIEF INTO THE EQUATION WHEN TALKING ABOUT FACTORS FOR A RACE? YOU ALREADY HAVE DRIVER AND CAR. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. There’s always a question of is it more car than driver. When you say car you kind of include the crew chief in that, but I see what you’re saying – that on race day the calls that are made. I’d say you’re exactly right and I’d say that’s a good way to think of it. The driver has to do his part, the crew chief has to do his part and the shop has the build the car to be fast enough, but I think you’re right in saying you will not win these races repeatedly if you don’t have the right calls on the pit box. If you look at the guys who have won races this year, I’d say a huge number – it feels like half or more of the races have been won by kind of a gutsy pit call, so it does take that crew chief right now.” 

 

HOW DO YOU KEEP BOB OSBORNE COOL? “He’s been doing really well lately. He’s been in a good mood. I still can’t believe he sung on the radio. That was insane, so I think Bob is having fun. The other day it was New Hampshire and we were slow in practice – it might have been qualifying when I qualified poorly – and he wasn’t saying much. I said, ‘Come on Bob, we can’t get frustrated.’ He said, ‘I don’t get frustrated. I get serious and I get to work.’ I thought that was pretty cool. He just works hard and he truly cares about it, so I’m just glad to have him as a crew chief. I think he does a really good job and I believe we understand each other really well. He puts up with me talking all the time and throwing out all these ideas and I put up with him just being serious and working hard and brushing me off all the time, so it’s pretty funny that way.”