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Charlotte II

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Darnell99Fan
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« on: October 13, 2007, 05:01:28 pm »

~Race2Win

Bank of America 500 - Matt Kenseth Notes
Matt Kenseth
1.5-mile Lowe's Motor Speedway
Concord, N.C.

Race Schedule
NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series: Bank of America 500
Saturday October 13
7:00 PM Eastern - ABC/PRN

NASCAR Busch Series: Dollar General 300
Friday October 12
3:30 PM Eastern - ESPN2/PRN

FAST FACTS

Matt Kenseth has scored four career victories at Lowe’s Motor Speedway; 2000 Coca-Cola 600, 2004 All-Star Race, and two Busch Series wins.
Kenseth’s No. 17 Ford will don a special paint scheme this weekend; the Carhartt for Women scheme will help kick off Carhartt’s first ever line of women’s apparel this fall.
Kenseth has an average start of 21.6 during the Chase at LMS; ranking eighth among all Chase tracks.
Kenseth’s average finish during the Chase at LMS is 17.0; ranking seventh among all Chase tracks.
“Hard times, hard times, come again no more” – Kenseth and the No. 17 team are experiencing an uncanny string of bad luck in the past three weeks, suffering a mechanical failure at Dover while leading three weeks ago, then getting caught up in wrecks the past two weeks at Kansas and Talladega, resulting in finishes of 35th, 35th, and 26th respectively. The last time Kenseth finished three consecutive Cup races 26th or worse was September of 2001, Richmond, Dover, and Kansas.

Matt Kenseth – NNCS Advance
Team: No. 17 Carhartt for Women/DEWALT Ford Fusion
Crew Chief: Robbie Reiser
Chassis: RK-317 Last outing: Fontana, Sept. ’07 – finished seventh
Also: Scored four top fives in ’07 including a win in Fontana, Feb. ’07
RK-340 Last outing: Pocono, August ’07 – finished 14th
Also: Served as backup in eight races in 2007

Kenseth on racing at Lowe’s Motor Speedway:
“I’ve always enjoyed racing at Charlotte. It’s a fast racetrack that’s pretty unique and demands a good handling racecar. Sometimes we’ve haven’t had the best of luck there, but other times we have. We’ve been able to run pretty good there from time to time and the fact we won our first Cup race there will always make that place special to me.

“Speaking of luck, we haven’t had much lately. This Chase has been pretty frustrating for sure, because our cars have been the best they’ve been all year, but we have little to show for it. It’s the complete opposite of last year’s Chase when our cars weren’t that good, but we stayed out of trouble and would finish about 12th or 15th. A lot of other people had problems last year and if we would’ve been just a little better on car performance we could have won it all. But, this year, we can’t seem to finish a race.

“Talladega was typical Talladega. Every time we go there, no matter what package we’re running, we always have a big wreck that takes out a bunch of cars. We had been fortunate for the past couple of years not to be in one of those, but last Sunday we weren’t as fortunate. But, there’s nothing we can do about that. All we can do is worry about Saturday night and try to get this really cool paint scheme up front and hopefully a finish that’s representative of how we’ve been running.”

Crew Chief Robbie Reiser on racing at Lowe’s Motor Speedway:
“We’re taking the same car we ran early in the year a lot and it actually started off with a win and four top fives, three of which came at intermediate tracks like Charlotte. Hopefully, it will be as good on Saturday and we can stay up front and compete for a win.

“This team has worked extremely hard this season to improve on these cars and get them to the point where we can compete. We’ve gotten to that point the last few weeks, but we don’t have anything but a couple of torn-up racecars to show for it. But, we can’t focus on the past. We have to be prepared for Saturday night and I know we will be. This team has too much pride to let the last few weeks get them down, and I’m pretty sure we’ll bounce back strong on Saturday.”

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« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2007, 12:43:52 pm »

Poor Matt all this bad luck  Cry
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« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2007, 03:44:33 pm »

Busch post race...

~Roush Fenway Racing

Kenseth's Night Ends Early at Lowe's Motor Speedway
Matt Kenseth and the No. 17 iLevel Ford Fusion Racing Team
Lowe's Motor Speedway/October 12, 2007


CONCORD, N.C. (October 12, 2007) – Roush Fenway Racing dominated qualifying for the Dollar General 300 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.  Matt Kenseth qualified the No. 17 iLevel Ford Fusion in the second position, just behind teammate Greg Biffle who took the pole, but right in front of his other teammate Jamie McMurray.  All five Roush Fenway Fords qualified in the top 10, but unfortunately only one of them was left running at the end.  Kenseth struggled with handling, had a cut tire and ultimately got caught up in a fellow competitor’s spin leaving him with a 31st-place finish at Charlotte.

Right from the start of the 200-lap event Kenseth was struggling with a tight-handling condition.  He had dropped back to the eighth position by the time the first caution came out on lap 26.  Kenseth knew a minor change was not going to get the car handling as well as he needed it to, so he told crew chief Drew Blickensderfer to come up with some big adjustments.  Blickensderfer had Kenseth pit under caution for fuel, four tires, wedge, track bar and air pressure adjustments.  Kenseth’s team gained him one spot on pit road and had him sitting seventh for the green-flag restart on lap 31. 

Kenseth reported back that the changes helped, but he was still way too tight.  Another caution flew on lap 85 for debris with Kenseth in the fifth position.  Kenseth once again pitted under caution, this time around he took four tires, fuel, an air pressure adjustment and a track bar adjustment.  The team noticed a large groove around the left front tire that they had just removed from Kenseth’s vehicle.  The team determined the fender must have gotten pushed down and was rubbing the tire.  While the field was still under caution Kenseth came back down pit road so the team could roll the fender away from the tire. 

The extra trip down pit road left Kenseth in the back of the field in the 19th position for the green-flag restart on lap 95.  The car which was to tight at the beginning of the race was now undriveably loose.  It was so loose Kenseth said he almost wrecked on the straightaway.  Luckily the caution came back out on lap 97 and Kenseth was able to pit for tires, fuel and a wedge adjustment. 

The car was now handling much better and Kenseth began making up the ground he had lost due to the fender rub.  Kenseth was all the way up to the 11th position when the caution came out on lap 125.  He pitted under caution for his last set of sticker tires, fuel and a track bad adjustment.  He restarted on lap 132 in the 11th position, but only made it two laps before Jimmie Johnson lost control of his car collecting Kenseth, among others, in the cars that went spinning across the backstretch.  The damage to the No. 17 iLevel for Fusion was too severe to fix, ending the team’s evening 67 laps short of the checkered flag with a 31st-place finish. 

“I’m not even sure what happened there at the end, but it’s not how we wanted our night to end,” said Kenseth.  “I saw a lot of smoke, I think Jimmie (Johnson) went spinning and we all just got collected in that.  My car wasn’t handling well at the start, but we kept adjusting on it and had it handling much better there at the end.  Hopefully things go a little better tomorrow night in our Cup car.”

About Roush Fenway Racing

Roush Fenway Racing is NASCAR’s largest team operating 13 motorsports teams, five in NASCAR NEXTEL Cup with drivers Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and David Ragan; five in the Busch Series with Kenseth, Biffle, Edwards, McMurray, Ragan, Todd Kluever, Michel Jourdain Jr. and Danny O’Quinn Jr.; and three in the Craftsman Truck Series with Edwards, Peter Shepherd, Travis Kvapil, Erik Darnell and T.J. Bell; and one in the ARCA/REMAX Series with Colin Braun and Darnell.

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« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2007, 04:20:57 pm »

I sure do appricate all the notes  Smiley
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« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2007, 02:26:27 pm »

~Roush Fenway Racing

Misfortune Finds Kenseth Again at Charlotte

Matt Kenseth and the No. 17 Carhartt for Womena Ford Fusion Racing Team
Lowe's Motor Speedway/October 13, 2007

CONCORD, N.C. (October 13, 2007) -- For Matt Kenseth and the No. 17 team, the 2007 Chase is beginning to feel like a bad scene from Groundhog Day.  After leading three different times for 32 laps in the first 134 laps of Saturday night’s event, a series of unfortunate events placed Kenseth in the middle of the pack for the first time all evening.  Kenseth reported the car’s handling as being “deathly loose,” even while out front in clean air and that condition only worsened in traffic.  So much so that on lap 159, Kenseth spun out while exiting turn four and made contact with the front-stretch wall.  After making repairs, Kenseth was close to gaining his lap back before getting involved in another accident, this one not of his doing, on the front stretch.  Finally, on lap 224, with the damage to the car far too great to overcome, Kenseth could no longer hang on and after his second spin of the night, came to the garage for extensive repairs.  The No. 17 did return to the track late in the race to gain a few spots, but eventually parked it in the 34th position, when there was nothing more to gain with a little more than 10 laps to go.
A crowd of well over 150,000 enjoyed a picture perfect evening at Lowe’s Motor Speedway as Ryan Newman led the field to the green flag at 7:46 PM Eastern time.  Kenseth rolled off seventh, his fourth straight top-11 qualifying effort at LMS.

Immediately, Kenseth knew something was amiss with the handling of his freshly designed Carhartt for Women Ford, reporting that the car was “Really good for the first 10 laps of a run, but then something drastic happens to it and it’s really loose from about lap 10 on.”

Though the condition never went away, Kenseth remained running in the top five with the help of some excellent pit stops by the “Killer Bees” and some great pit strategy by Robbie Reiser.  As loose as his car was, it became imperative that Kenseth remain up front in clean air.

On lap 63, while running in fifth, the first in a series of problems occurred for Kenseth and company.  Kenseth reported to the crew that he had issues with his alternator and as a result was losing battery voltage rapidly.  To counter the problem, Kenseth turned off most of the car’s fans and switched to the backup battery.  However, to conserve the life of the backup, Kenseth ran the primary while under caution, but warned that if anything should happen on pit road, to where he stalled the car, that he would most likely need a push off, due to the loss of battery power.

Kenseth led on several occasions in the early on thanks to some great pit stops by the No. 17 crew.  The most impressive stop came on lap 119, when Kenseth entered in the fourth position, but thanks to a 12.37-second four tires and fuel stop, he returned to the track with the lead.

Throughout the first 138 laps, Kenseth toiled in the top five, and while little seemed to help the “deathly loose” condition of his racecar, by being up front, he was able to enjoy less traffic and cleaner air.

That was until a pit stop under caution on lap 138.  Reiser made the call for two tires in order to keep Kenseth up front, which appeared to be the right call, but upon exit from the pit stall, Kenseth had to suddenly slam on brakes in order to avoid hitting the No. 22 car.  In the process, the engine stalled, and because of the bad alternator, Kenseth needed a push from his pit crew to get going again.  The extra time cost Kenseth nearly 10 positions and he returned to the track in 12th. 

Immediately after the restart, Kenseth could tell the difference of running in heavy traffic, reporting the car as being, “So loose, I can barely hang on.”  After a couple of good saves, spotter Bob Jeffrey even said to Kenseth, “You’re putting on one heck of a show for Mark (Martin) behind you there.”  Kenseth immediately responded, “It’s only a matter of time.”

One lap later, the time came, and Kenseth spun coming off of turn four.  The No. 17 Ford slid down on the infield grass before sliding all the way back across the track and making contact with the outside retaining wall.  Kenseth came to pit road several times under caution where the team made numerous repairs to the right rear of the car and in the process went one lap down.

Down, but not out, Kenseth fought valiantly, despite a wrecked racecar, to attempt to gain his lap back, and was near the position to be the beneficiary for the “free pass.”  Unfortunately, on lap 207, the car running directly in front of Kenseth spun out off of turn four.  Kenseth slowed down in anticipation of the car sliding back across the track, which it did, but the car trailing Kenseth failed to slow down and slammed hard into the back of the already damaged No. 17 Ford.  Kenseth again returned to pit road for repairs, but got back on the track in 32nd, still only one lap down, but with an even more heavily damaged racecar. 

Finally, on lap 224, Kenseth could not longer hang on as the No. 17 Ford spun off of turn two.  Kenseth reported, “It just swapped ends on me.  I couldn’t drive it any longer and it just wrecked.”

This time Kenseth was forced behind the wall and into the garage for extensive repairs.  But, the tenacity of the No. 17 crew was never more evident than when they went to work on the damaged machine and returned it to racetrack 33 laps later.  Though Kenseth was well out of contention in 36th place, he did manage to run until he gained as many spots as possible, passing two other wrecked machines to finish 34th.  With nothing left to gain or lose, Reiser called Kenseth to the garage with 12 laps remaining to park it for the evening.

"I don't know where to start,” said a frustrated Kenseth.  “We had a pretty fast car tonight, we had something weird that we'd run 10 laps and I would get so loose in the corner I could hardly hang onto it.  I have absolutely no excuse.  I really feel like an idiot out here tonight.  I wrecked twice and it seems like we've wrecked for a month straight, so I really want to apologize to my fans.  It's kind of hard to stress how these guys work on this car.  I really feel bad for these guys.  I really let them down."

NEXT UP:
Subway 500
.526-mile Martinsville Speedway
Martinsville, Va.
Sunday, Oct. 21, 2007

About Roush Fenway Racing

Roush Fenway Racing is NASCAR’s largest team operating 14 motorsports teams, five in NASCAR NEXTEL Cup with drivers Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and David Ragan; five in the Busch Series with Kenseth, Biffle, Edwards, McMurray, Ragan, Todd Kluever, Michel Jourdain Jr. and Danny O’Quinn Jr.; and three in the Craftsman Truck Series with Edwards, Peter Shepherd, Travis Kvapil, Erik Darnell and T.J. Bell; and one in the ARCA/REMAX Series with Colin Braun and Darnell.
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