September 27, 2020
Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Las Vegas, Nev.)
400.5 miles
Start: 20th | Finish: 18th Points: 19 | Standings: 25th
Kenseth's teammate Kurt Busch scored his first win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, automatically advancing Busch to the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Playoffs.
Kenseth was on a similar strategy as Busch, when a caution during a cycle of green flag pit stops resulted in Busch restarting first and Kenseth restarting seventh with around 30 laps remaining.
Kenseth fell to ninth during the next run, but the crew decided to leave him out on the ensuing caution, when most of the field behind him came to get fresh rubber. As result, Kenseth fell back to 15th during the next short run.
A caution flew prompting NASCAR overtime, and this time Kenseth came to pit road for new tires, but was only able to make it back up to 18th in the two-lap shootout.
The caution flag was shown seven times for a total of 36 laps
The lead changed 20 times among 11 drivers
Phil Surgen, Crew Chief, No. 42 McDonald’s Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE
“Congrats to Kurt and our teammates on the No. 1 car. It’s great to see those guys locked into the next round of the playoffs. We were on a similar strategy as the No. 1 team for our green flag stop in the final stage, and hadn’t pitted yet. When the caution came out around Lap 235, we picked up a good number of spots as a result of most of the frontrunners pitting under green shortly before the caution. We were able to restart inside the top-10 with about 25 laps remaining in the race. Matt held his own on the restart but reported the balance on the car was too tight on what turned out to be only a handful of laps before the caution came out again on Lap 251. We stayed out, and the car handled a little better on cycled tires following the restart, but unfortunately we had to come and pit during the final caution on Lap 272, which cost us some track position. We worked all race to get the balance where it needed to be, but just never found a setup that was ideal for where we ran tonight.”
NASCAR will head to Talladega Superspeedway next week for the YellaWood 500 on Sunday, Oct. 4. NBC, MRN affiliates and SiriusXM NASCAR Channel 90 will have live coverage beginning at 2 p.m. EDT.
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