FONTANA, CA (May 2, 2004) — Matt Kenseth finished fourth in the running of the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway and though he was fast all day long, he overcame a mid-race pit problem and benefited from some excellent pit strategy of his own as well.

Rolling off the starting grid in 25th place, Kenseth put the pedal to the metal and showed that he didn’t plan on staying back in the pack. Within the first 20 laps, Kenseth cracked the top-10 and was running in ninth place with a car he described as “…just a tic tight.” Kenseth moved into fourth position following a brief caution period and following the third caution on lap 50, he came down pit road for service in third place. Not satisfied with that running position, the “Killer Bees” executed a lightning-fast 12.59-second pit stop that left many on pit road wondering if Kenseth only changed two tires. He came off pit road and inherited the lead on lap 54.

Following the fourth caution period, which involved teammate Kurt Busch, Kenseth began to fall off just a little, dropping back to fifth place on lap 67 before the car responded to the tight/loose condition. “It’s just too loose,” said Kenseth. “We’re going to have to fix it if we want to run with these guys [the leaders at the time],” he added.

Kenseth got back to third place before pitting again under caution on lap 93. On the subsequent lap 97 restart, he had a close call with teammate Greg Biffle, who had a transmission problem when coming up to speed. An alert Kenseth dove to the high side to avoid trouble. Beginning on lap 107, Kenseth faced a daunting 100 laps with a car, which was seemingly losing the handle on the racetrack. “It’s both tight and loose at opposite ends of the track,” reported Kenseth. A tenuous balance would have to be reached in order to keep the No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford in contention for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, time and time again during the pit stops, crew chief Robbie Reiser and lead engineer Chip Bolin came up with the right combination to keep the car moving forward. By the halfway point on lap 125, Kenseth was running sixth.

It was following a lap 139 caution that the entire team would be tested in this event. Coming down for service, the crew had decided on an air pressure adjustment, a track bar adjustment and to pull a rubber from the right rear spring. The stop took longer than usual, over 16-seconds, and worse still-Kenseth radioed that he felt like he damaged the clutch leaving pit road. Kenseth came into the pits in fourth, but restarted the race on lap 145 in 13th.

Doing what he always does, Kenseth went right to work, just trying to get by each car on the racetrack one at a time. In a 26-lap stretch from lap 161-187, Kenseth gained back seven positions and was running a solid sixth place. The smiles were beginning to return to the pit area for the 17 team.

Little did they know that the best was yet to come.

After restarting the race on lap 208 from the eighth position, Kenseth and Ryan Newman staged an epic battle on the track for sixth place with rookie Brendan Gaughan. The three cars sometimes ran three abreast coming down the frontstretch and swapped the positions back and forth several times.

With just seven laps to go, it looked as if Kenseth was going to finish a solid seventh place in the race. But fate intervened as both Evernham race cars of Kasey Kahne and Jeremy Mayfield ran out of fuel with just two laps to go in the event. Kenseth popped up the leader board to fifth. Then, Bobby Labonte ran out of fuel on the final lap. Kenseth passed his still rolling car and took over the fourth spot as he crossed under the checkered flag.

Climbing from the car after a very hot four and a half hours behind the wheel, Kenseth displayed his trademark smile and cool demeanor as he spoke with the press on pit road:

“At times in the race we ran really good, capable of winning, and we had a problem in the pits - the clutch went out and I messed up the tire changer, and let the clutch out too early, and got ourselves behind. And then we didn’t handle good. We just lost the handle the last two runs. So, for all that stuff to go wrong and still finish fourth is pretty lucky.”

ON PICKING UP A NUMBER OF SPOTS IN THE LAST COUPLE OF LAPS. “They all ran out of gas - the 9, 19 and 18 all ran out of gas.”

THE TOP-FIVE HAS TO MAKE YOU HAPPY. “Yeah, I’m really happy. Early in the race we ran pretty good. I thought we were going to be a contender, I thought we were going to be a factor. On a pit stop, the master cylinder or something must’ve leaked on the clutch and let the clutch out and messed them guys up and lost a bunch of track position. And after that pit stop we sort of lost the handle on the car and we were just way too tight the last two runs. So most of the race we were too loose, and we were just too tight the last two runs, I just couldn’t do anything else.”

DID THE TRACK CHANGE MUCH TODAY? “I thought it started off normal and got real, real loose, and then it went to a real tight stage at the end. I adjusted for the loose stage and had it too tight when the track tightened up.”

A TOP-FIVE AFTER A TOUGH BREAK LAST WEEK AT TALLADEGA. “Yeah. We got to finish races and not make mistakes, not make mistakes on track but we got to not have parts break too. The way everybody ran today, hopefully that will get us back up a little more solid in the top-10 in the points and get some momentum going.”

Matt Kenseth and the No. 17 DEWALT Tools team moved up one spot in the NASCAR NEXTEL Chase for the Championship-to fourth, now trailing leader Dale Earnhardt, Jr. by just 96 points. The series has the weekend off for Mother’s Day, but returns to action in two weeks at Richmond, where Kenseth finished seventh last year in this event.

Auto Club 500 • Sunday, April 25th, 2004; 3 p.m. EDT
California Speedway, Fontana, California

Matt Kenseth performance summary at California

DATE	START	FINISH	LAPS	MONEY	STATUS
04/30/00	23	3	250/250	$114,325	Running
04/29/01	23	17	250/250	$61,500	Running
04/28/02	20	20	249/250	$77,550	Running
04/26/03	23	9	250/250	$95,425	Running

“I’m kind of glad to get back to some normal racing this week and California Speedway has been pretty good to us in the past. I’m kind of anxious to see how the setup works for us with the new tires falling off and everything. It will definitely help that I’m running my Busch car out here so I can get some extra laps throughout the weekend.” 

Robbie Reiser on California Speedway:

“We’re bringing a brand new car with us this weekend, but we’ve tested it a couple of times and we kind of like the way it responds to changes. If we can get our chassis to handle, we’ll use the best pit strategy we can come up with for Sunday.”

Notes

• Kenseth fell to fifth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup standings on the heels of a 42nd place finish at Talladega one week ago. He is now 155 points out of first place. Kenseth has spent 44 straight weeks inside the “NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Top 10” — the longest active streak.
    

• The No. 17 DEWALT Tools team will be bringing chassis #34 to California Speedway. The car is brand new, but has participated in two test sessions at Kentucky Speedway.
    

• Matt Kenseth has two top-10 finishes in four starts at California Speedway. He has led at least one lap in three of the four events at the track.

CONCORD, NC (April 27th, 2004) — The two-time World Champion DEWALT pit crew has done it again. As of this week, they have been named the First Quarter recipient of the Mechanix Wear Most Valuable Pit Crew Award 2004. You may remember that the team won the yearly award for the 2003 season. Now they’re back to defend their title. It goes without saying that the “Killer Bees” have quite a reputation up and down pit road.

According to Ted Abdon, Director of Racing for Mechanix Wear, the Most Valuable Pit Crew award is voted on by all of the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup crew chiefs via a secret ballot. The criteria for the award is to recognize the team, which contributes the most to the team’s race day success-and pit stops aren’t everything. “Obviously, there is so much more parity this year,” said Abdon. “It makes this quarterly and yearly award much harder to win, and thus it becomes a greater honor for the team,” he added.

The entire pit crew will be on hand with driver Matt Kenseth during driver introductions at this weekend’s Auto Club 500 event at California Speedway in order to receive their recognition for the award.

Crew Chief Robbie Reiser couldn’t be prouder. “These guys week in and week out are constantly showing why they’re the best. If they have a bad stop, I don’t get on ’em … I just remind them of who they are and they respond every time.”

TALLADEGA, Ala. (April 25th, 2004) — Matt Kenseth had a rough and tumble day at Talladega Superspeedway during the running of the Aaron’s 499 race. A less than auspicious start, a wild spin, an improbable comeback and finally a mechanical failure made for a tough points day for the No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford.

Rolling off the starting grid from the 31st spot, the team was optimistic that they had a good car for the day. The car had performed admirably in both final practice sessions on Saturday. Just as the cars got going, the No. 32 car of Ricky Craven lost an engine on lap three, bringing out the first of what would end up a record-setting ten caution periods. Two laps later, crew chief Robbie Reiser brought the car down pit road to top off the fuel.

Kenseth restarted in 26th on lap 15, but reported that the engine was beginning to heat up in the middle of the drafting pack. He would have to back out of the main pack temporarily in order to get the temperature back to normal. He reported to Reiser that they needed to remove some grille tape on their next stop.

Three laps later and Kenseth took over the eleventh spot, just as teammate Kurt Busch took the lead. The car was starting to come alive and there was much anticipation in the pit area. That all changed just three laps later on the 21st circuit. Coming down through the tri-oval, Kenseth’s car had the air taken off the spoiler and the chassis responded by getting tight. Kenseth drifted up ever so slightly and just did tag the left rear quarter panel.

It was enough to send the No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford on a wild looping series of spins as the pack headed down into turn one. With all the good fortune one can expect in one day, nobody hit Kenseth and he didn’t hit any walls. “I didn’t hit anything,” Kenseth reported, but he added that he was gingerly making his way back to pit road on four flat-spotted tires. He would have liked to have gone faster, but a shredded tire can make quick work of a front fender.

Kenseth and the No. 17 DEWALT Tools team made four subsequent pit stops to repair and patch their damaged right front fender. They used a DEWALT reciprocating saw to craft a new front corner of the valence and bumper. After a tape and pop-rivet job, the No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford returned to action. “Good as new,” reported car chief Jeff Vandermoss.

Kenseth restarted 42nd on lap 26, but wasn’t up to enough speed to catch the main drafting pack. Though the team was running all alone on the track, it was a long day and there was always the chance of a caution.

True to form, the caution flag waved just seven laps later for debris on the frontstretch. Kenseth and Company was back in business and caught up to the field. Kenseth restarted in 40th on lap 39, but quickly made his way to the front now that he had been given a second chance on the day. By lap 42, he was 33rd. Lap 48 had him scored in 16th place and he cracked the top-10 for the first time all day on lap 51-seventh place. One lap later and the No. 01 car of Joe Nemechek bounced off Kenseth in the tri-oval. It was a close call, but both cars keep things straight. Four laps later and Kenseth cracked the top-five running order. He crossed the 56th circuit in fourth place. One lap later and he took third place, while flirting with second.

Unfortunately, the day went downhill all too quickly just when things were looking up. A lap 59 mechanical failure relegated the team to a 42nd place finish. Afterward, a dejected Kenseth faced the media mob outside the DEWALT Team transporter.

“We’re done for the day. Something broke in the engine. It just missed a little bit by the start-finish line and then it went ahead and blew up, so it’s disappointing. I made a big mistake early in the race and wrecked and could have torn up a lot of other cars and thankfully we didn’t too bad. After that, we just tried to get back to the front and the engine blew up.”

WHAT HAPPENED EARLY IN THE RACE? “I don’t know. It kind of surprised me. I was pushing Kevin on the outside and my teammate, Kurt, was on the bottom so I was gonna go try to push him and as soon as I switched lanes I kind of got under Kevin and we got real close together. He got a little bit down and I got a little bit up and I just hit him in the door. My wheels were turned and it spun my car out. I’ve never raced this car before. That’s the first time I was in that situation in the tri-oval and it just took the air off the nose and I couldn’t get it to turn. I kind of got up into him and I turned myself around.”

YOU ENGINE ISSUES IN THE FALL AS WELL. “Yeah, hopefully it’ll get better. You’re gonna have these things happen now and then. We’ve got a great engine program and a great group of guys. They do a lot of hard work to give us good horsepower and this is one of those things that’s gonna happen now and then.”

HOW DISAPPOINTING TO COME FROM THE BACK AND THEN HAVE THE ENGINE GO? “You never know what’s gonna happen here, so it’s always disappointing when you drop out, but things could have been a lot worse.” HOW WAS IT OUT THERE? “It was crazy. It was a lot worse than I’ve seen it for a while. I was no exception, I guess. I got in that first accident and didn’t end up doing what I probably should have there. It didn’t quite work out right, but we were already running three-wide and then there are guys going in the middle four-wide. There was a lot of crazy stuff going on, but it’s a good race. All of the cars are about the same speed.”

WHY IS IT SO WILD? THE WEATHER? “No, I don’t think it has anything to do that. It’s just that there are so many rules that the cars are just pretty much all the same speed and when you put them in a big glob and when you get in the draft you can catch up to the guy in front of you. It just has everybody under a blanket.”

IS THAT WHY TALLADEGA IS NOT FUN FOR YOU GUYS? “Sometimes it’s fun when you have a real good car and you can get to the front, but it’s just a different kind of racing. You’re just on the floor all day and, hopefully, you’ve got a fast car.”

ANY WARNING? “No, when they blow up they blow up pretty quick. It just missed a little bit and then it broke.”

WHAT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF DRIVING TO HAVE AN ACCIDENT LIKE YOU DID AND NOT HAVE A BUNCH OF CARS INVOLVED? “That was pretty amazing and since I was pretty much the start of the incident, I was happy nobody really got torn up too bad in that. Everybody is a great driver out there, obviously, and there’s a lot of luck that comes into that too. There was a lot of smoke and you can’t see, so it doesn’t really matter how good of a driver you are. Everybody did a good job of not hitting each other. I was all over the track and nobody got into me, so that was pretty amazing.”

Despite the rough day, Kenseth actually remained in the top-five for the 2004 NASCAR NEXTEL Chase for the Championship. He trails now leader Dale Earnhardt, Jr. 1342–1192. Next week, the series heads to California Speedway for the Auto Club 500.

CONCORD, NC (April 22nd, 2004) - The No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford spotlight returns in 2004 with a focus on Ed Young. Ed has worked for Roush Racing for five years and has been a part of the DEWALT Racing team since in began in the Cup ranks in 2000. Consequently, his favorite racing memory also happened that year as Matt Kenseth and the DEWALT Team won their first ever Winston Cup race during the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Ed is 45 years old and hails from Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He didn’t exactly grow up in a racing family, but a good friend of his introduced him to the sport when he was 17 years old. It later became an obsession as Young decided to try his hand behind the wheel. For three years, Ed wheeled a DIRT Modified car (No. P-4) and plied his trade at such Pennsylvania dirt tracks as the old Nazareth Speedway, Penncann Speedway and Five Mile Point. He notched a feature win of his own during that time in 1985.

Ed Young finally moved down to North Carolina to assess his personal journey into stock car racing’s big leagues. He admits it was a little tough coming up through the ranks. “Some of the folks you start off with, well, you end up putting up with a lot,” he says. “But, I can’t say it didn’t pay off for me because I work for the defending NEXTEL Champion team as of now,” he added. Young has worked his way up in Robbie Reiser’s shop as the Prep Shop Foreman for the team. He also is the head of pit support setups on Sundays before the race. From the computer tracking software to the satellite reception on the pit box, Ed has it covered.

Asked if he could change one thing in NASCAR right now, he answered without hesitating: “More Saturday night races!”

We second that.

Aaron’s 499 • Sunday, April 25th, 2004; 1 p.m. EDT
Talladega Superspeedway, Talladega, Alabama

Matt Kenseth performance summary at Talladega

DATE	START	FINISH	LAPS	MONEY	STATUS
4/16/00	42	18	187/188	$50,260	Running
10/15/00	36	10	188/188	$65,100	Running
4/22/01	40	19	188/188	$58,395	Running
10/21/01	24	4	188/188	$77,550	Running
04/21/02	37	30	180/188	$80,905	Running
10/06/02	8	14	188/188	$67,295	Running
4/06/03	28	9	188/188	$104,730	Running
9/28/03	37	33	158/188	$61,125	Engine

Matt Kenseth on Talladega Superspeedway:

“I think our restrictor plate program has come a long way since even last year and we kind of showed that at Daytona during Speedweeks earlier this year. Our strategy has always been to get a car that just handles in the draft — something that’s very stable so we can be comfortable all day. We’ve met that goal in all of our recent restrictor plate races and this car should perform for us this weekend too. The only other factor is to just stay out of trouble and avoid a big pileup, but we usually have very little control over that.”

Robbie Reiser on Talladega Superspeedway:

“I’m pretty satisfied with our plate car. It’s not going to be a threat for the pole position or anything, but it should draft well enough for us to come out of here with a decent finish — barring any unforeseen trouble on the racetrack.”

Notes

• Matt Kenseth finished eighth at Martinsville Speedway last weekend. He is one of three drivers that have six top-10 finishes in eight 2004 starts.
    
• Kenseth falls to third in the NASCAR NEXTEL standings, just 12 points out of first place (1155–1167). Kenseth has spent 43 straight weeks inside the “NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Top 10” — the longest active streak.
    
• The No. 17 DEWALT Tools team will be bringing chassis #20 to Talladega Superspeedway. The car was previously used at both 2003 Talladega events.
    
• Kenseth has three top-10 finishes at Talladega and has led at least one lap in all eight of his Talladega starts.

MARTINSVILLE, VA (April 18th, 2004) — Matt Kenseth pulled off an amazing eighth place finish during the running of the Advance Auto Parts 500 at Martinsville Speedway. Not known for his smooth finishes at Martinsville, Kenseth refused to bend to the will of the track — and it was the track’s surface that gave way first. On lap 290, the race was halted after a chunk of concrete came loose from the groove in turns three and four. Safety crews patched the hole and the race was able to finish the advertised length. Kenseth ended up notching his sixth top-ten finish in the first eight races of 2004.

Rolling off the starting grid in 29th place, the DEWALT Racing team braced itself for a long day. The car had not performed well in the final two practice sessions on Saturday and crew chief Robbie Reiser was half expecting the worst. However, within the first 100 laps, the car seemed to perform magically — as if Saturday never happened. “It feels really good and it seems to get better the longer we run,” Kenseth reported on lap 40 while running 25th. The only hiccup seemed to be a pesky carburetor under the hood. When Kenseth went to hit the gas in the middle of the turn, it would hiccup and spin the tires when the throttle finally caught. Though, this proved to be a blessing in disguise the longer the car ran. As the tires wore down, the hiccup actually helped Kenseth get off the corner without spinning his tires.

Kenseth moved into the top 15 for the first time on lap 86. Though the car soon became a little loose coming off the corners, it didn’t halt Kenseth’s charge to the front. By lap 116, he was running in 11th. Six laps later and he pitted under caution for four tires and no changes. The over-the-wall crew got him out in 8th place after a 14-second stop. He was in the top ten for the first time all day on the subsequent lap 127 restart.

Throughout the day, it was commonplace for the No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford to lose two to three spots in the first few laps, until the tires wore off. This pattern continued over the next 100 laps as Kenseth floated between 11th and eighth place the whole time. There were plenty of caution flags to go around during the day and fortunately, Kenseth was never involved on the receiving end.

Kenseth remained in the top ten as the race neared its 300th circuit. Then something truly strange happened. The No. 8 car of Dale Earnhardt Jr., while leading the race, seemed to kick up a large chunk of the concrete in turns three and four. The piece flew backward and severely damaged the right front fender and valance of the No. 24 car driven by Jeff Gordon. NASCAR halted the action and a red flag was thrown so the crews could patch the hole now left in the racing groove. For over an hour and fifteen minutes, the cars were parked on the backstretch and the drivers wandered around the garage area wondering if the event would be called early.

Whatever the epoxy solution the safety crews used to fill in the hole, it did work. After the race restarted again, it was never an issue from that point out. Kenseth fell back even further out of the top ten during laps 301–370 — and a caution flag only repeated the “fall back, catch up” behavior of the car.

It wasn’t until an awesome pit stop by the “Killer Bees” that Matt Kenseth looked like a solid top-10 finisher on the day. Coming down pit road for the final time of the day, the pit crew performed their fastest stop of the day and one of the fastest of the entire year — 12.41 seconds for four tires. Kenseth came on pit road in 12th place, but he left in seventh.

The day still wasn’t through with its challenges for Matt Kenseth however. Just eight laps later, while battling hard for position with the No. 29 car of Kevin Harvick, Kenseth made contact with him going into turn three. This sent the No. 29 car spinning up into the wall, where he sustained heavy damage to the rear of the car. Kenseth shouldered the blame for the incident and explained it as a non-verbal communication miscue on behalf of both drivers. “That was my fault. He was running on the outside and he waved out the window like he wanted me to go by on the inside. I was still on the inside and he just came down in front of me and hit the brakes real hard and I just couldn’t get slowed up.”

Kenseth was able to hang onto eighth place and held off a hard charging Sterling Marlin to lock up the top-ten finish. Afterward, Kenseth talked about his unlikely Martinsville success story:

“That was a good finish. We improved on what we usually do here. We still need to get better, but that was a lot better than we usually run here.”

THE LAST 100 LAPS WERE PRETTY INTENSE. “Yeah, there was some stuff going on out there so we just tried to get our to work the best we could and get as many spots as we could.”

YOU MUST FEEL GOOD TO GET OUT OF HERE IN GOOD SHAPE. “This is probably my worst place — here and Sears Point — so when I get out of here with a top 10 I’m pretty happy. You always want to do better, but to finish eighth here and survive the whole day. It’s a long day here so I’m pretty happy with that.”

DID THE DELAY AFFECT YOU OR YOUR CAR? “My car didn’t run at all after that red flag. I just couldn’t get going at all. After we put tires back on I was OK, so it seemed to hurt us a little bit there, but we got most of it back at the end.”

Despite the improbable good fortune on the day, Kenseth actually slipped back one place in the 2004 NASCAR NEXTEL Chase for the Championship. However, the point spread is much tighter. Dale Earnhardt Jr. now leads the standings by seven points over Kurt Busch and twelve points over Kenseth. Next week, the tour heads to Talladega Superspeedway for the second restrictor plate race of the year.

CONCORD, NC (April 13, 2004) — Roush Racing driver Matt Kenseth is slated to participate in a satellite media tour live from the No. 17 Shop tomorrow afternoon. As part of the Smirnoff Ice “Be Smart, Drink Responsibly” campaign, Kenseth is slated to get the message out to some national media outlets from 4:30–5:30 p.m. EDT.

Smirnoff Ice will make its debut as primary sponsor on the No. 17 Fords driven by Matt Kenseth at the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway on May 30th of this year. Smirnoff Ice will also be the primary sponsor on the car for five other select events: the Pepsi 400 at Daytona, the New England 300 at New Hampshire, the Brickyard 400 at Indy, the Pop Secret 500 at California and the EA Sports 500 at Talladega in the Fall. Currently, Smirnoff Ice is an associate sponsor on the regular DEWALT paint scheme with decals adorning the lower hood and side panels of the car each week.

Some of the national media outlets set to participate in tomorrow’s satellite media tour include ESPN News, Totally NASCAR and the Best Damn Sports Show, which has a live shot slated for 5:25–5:35 p.m. EDT.

“I try to have a little bit of fun with the SMT’s,” said Kenseth. “But, the message of responsible drinking is an important aspect of their program with Roush Racing and it’s one that we take pretty seriously with the media,” he added.

Later this year, Kenseth will fulfill some other responsible drinking programs in conjunction with Smirnoff Ice. The same weekend as the Coca-Cola 600 debut, Kenseth will offer safe rides home as part of the Smirnoff program. He will also team up with Recording Artists and Athletes Against Drunk Driving (RADD) to raise money during the EA Sports 500. Last year, he presented a $5000 check for money earned with each lap led in the race.

Advance Auto Parts 500 • Sunday, April 18; 1 p.m. EDT
Martinsville Speedway, Martinsville, Va.

Matt Kenseth performance summary at Martinsville

DATE	START	FINISH	LAPS	MONEY	STATUS
04/09/00	31	21	498/500	$38,625	Running
10/01/00	37	34	447/500	$32,700	Running
04/08/01	25	6	500/500	$57,750	Running
10/14/01	22	36	459/500	$37,725	Rear End
04/14/02	26	2	500/500	$97,165	Running
10/20/02	17	19	499/500	$55,875	Running
04/13/03	34	22	499/500	$66,725	Running
10/19/03	14	13	500/500	$68,400	Running

Matt Kenseth on Martinsville Speedway:

“Martinsville hasn’t been one of my better tracks, but we’ve tested there the last two years in a row and I think we’re making some decent gains on our race setup. Part of Martinsville is also protecting the nose of your car and not getting caught up in anything on restarts and stuff. I think we’ll have a decent day if we can apply what we’ve learned so far and stay out of trouble.”

Robbie Reiser on Martinsville Speedway:

“We tested two different chassis at our test session last week. We settled on chassis 22, which is the car we used last year in both Martinsville races. We also tested our new chassis (33), but I don’t think we want to tear that up this weekend if we can help it. We may have some other plans for it down the road.”

Notes

CONCORD, NC (April 7, 2004) — The No. 17 DEWALT Tools Racing Team recently completed a one-day test at Martinsville Speedway in preparation for the Advance Auto Parts 500 in two weeks. It marks the second time that the team has tested Martinsville in as many years-in part because it’s a track where the team feels it can use the extra practice time. Kenseth finished one lap down in 22nd in the spring event last year and 13th on the lead lap in the fall event in 2003.

According to crew chief Robbie Reiser, the team took two chassis to the test — Chassis 22 and Chassis 33. Chassis 22 was the car used during both Martinsville events in 2003 and made one start at the fall New Hampshire race. Chassis 33 is a brand new car.

The team ran a total of about 500 laps during the one-day test — all of it in race trim. “We did about three 50-lap segments,” said Reiser. “The rest of the time was spent on making runs of differing lengths,” he added.

“Any time you can get extra practice time so close to a race at the same track is a plus,” said Reiser. “I’d definitely say we’re better prepared for things as a result,” he added.

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FT. WORTH, TX (April 4, 2004) — Matt Kenseth had an uncharacteristically tough day during the Samsung/Radio Shack 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. After missing the setup, Kenseth brushed the wall midway through the race and added to his woes. Though Kenseth did finish outside the top-ten for only the second time this year, the team had a fight on its hands and answered the call throughout the afternoon.

Rolling off the starting grid from the 25th spot, Kenseth was quick to radio during the opening laps that the car was loose throughout the corners. But, as the track tends to tighten up as the day went on, there was no cause for immediate alarm. A lap 17 caution allowed the team to adjust on the car and crew chief Robbie Reiser went to work adjusting the car on pit road with two turns down on the track bar to tighten up the No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford.

After the lap 23 restart, a rather upset Kenseth radioed in quickly that the car was just as loose as before, if not worse. “Are you sure you went down on the track bar?” he asked. Kenseth fell back at an alarming rate — dropping all the way to 37th position on lap 35. Then, as the tires wore down and the car naturally tightened a bit, he moved back forward in the running order again. Over the next 43 laps, he would finally get back to his restart position of 28th.

By the end of a long green flag run, Kenseth reported that the car was just about perfect. Unfortunately, he didn’t get enough of those runs on this particular Sunday. Kenseth was dangerously close to going a lap down at this point in the event, before a lap 80 pit stop kept him with a decent cushion. When the second caution flag of the day waved on lap 117, Kenseth and the crew decided to make a a drastic change on pit road. Since they were the last car on the lead lap, they had the luxury of an extended stop. Over two separate stops on laps 122–3, Kenseth came down pit road, the car was jacked up and car chief Jeff Vandermoss adjusted the entire rear end assembly forward by a slight margin. After another stop to top off the fuel, Kenseth restarted in 18th on lap 124.

Just over a dozen laps later, Kenseth brushed the wall coming off of turn two. He suffered cosmetic damage to the side and fender damage to the right front — which caused a push getting into the corners. His forward progress was stopped. Kenseth fought hard over the next 40 or so laps to stay ahead of the leader, but Kasey Kahne was setting a blistering pace and the No. 17 car went a lap down on the 173rd circuit.

This week, there would be no “Lucky Dog” breaks.

The No. 17 DEWALT Tools team continued to fight and work on the car under caution periods to gain their lap back. Trying every trick in the book, the team even short-pitted Kenseth on lap 256 of the 334 lap event. Unfortunately, the move backfired when the caution flag flew just nine laps later, giving the lead lap cars a chance to pit under yellow. Still, the team refused to give up, especially Kenseth, who continued to drive a masterful race to pick up as many positions as possible under the circumstances. By the end of the day, the best they could hope to finish was 15th, and Kenseth came up just eight feet short of that goal, crossing the line 16th at the finish.

Afterward, a tired Kenseth spoke with reporters about his troubling day:

“It was just a tough day. We didn’t run very good and just about got lapped there. We did get lapped, but the next time under green we pitted early and then got caught and lost two laps over that deal. We just never could get it back and we just didn’t run good. We had our setup too far off. We just have to do our homework and figure out what we’re missing.”

WHEN YOU HIT THE WALL DID THAT DO MAJOR DAMAGE? “It didn’t do any major damage. At the end of the race we were running as good as the guys in front of us, but it didn’t help anything either.”

Kenseth lost the point lead to teammate Kurt Busch, but remains just 19 points out of first place (1032–1013) heading into the second off-weekend of the year. The team plans to test at Martinsville Speedway this Tuesday, the site of the next NASCAR NEXTEL EVENT.