Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, put up the
third-fastest lap during the first practice at Kansas Speedway on
Saturday. Kenseth's third-place showing at Dover last Sunday was his
best finish since opening the 2009 season with back-to-back victories at
Daytona and Fontana. The 2003 series champion has two top-five finishes
at Kansas and is second among laps led in the track's history with 183.
MATT KENSETH -- No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion
ARE THE THIRD-PLACE FINISH
AT DOVER LAST WEEK AND THE THIRD-FASTEST TIME IN PRACTICE THIS MORNING
ACCURATE INDICATORS OF THIS TEAM'S RECENT PERFORMANCE? "Practice times,
often, are who gets out first and who gets a good lap -- the fast lap on
the sheet isn't always a real good indicator of what's going to happen
tomorrow. But, our car did have good speed the whole practice. I'm
pretty happy with it. We seem to have found some stuff that seems to be
running faster and a little bit better, but I think we have a ways to go
to drive good and be competitive for 400 miles."
IS THE PERFORMANCE STARTING TO MOVE BACK TO WHERE THIS TEAM EXPECTS IT?
"It's hard to say in one week. Richmond and New Hampshire were two of
our worst weeks in the entire season -- performance on the race track, on
pit road, getting the car to run fast, me going through a pit box -- the
whole thing has been terrible. So, last week was a very good, solid week
for us, but it's only one week so I can't really answer that until we
get a few more weeks down the road."
NEXT WEEK THE RACE IS IN FONTANA, WHERE YOU WON IN FEBRUARY. DOES THAT
RACE EVEN SEEM LIKE IT WAS DURING THIS SEASON, OR DOES IT SEEM LIKE IT
WAS A LONG, LONG TIME AGO? "Yes and no. I doesn't really mean much to
me today because we went to Michigan, which historically has been one of
our best tracks and both races we did terrible -- I think we finished in
the 20s both races -- so past success doesn't really mean much for
what's going on today, it seems like. So, we've just got to get our
cars going in the right direction. You know, if we could get a good run
this weekend, that would probably make us feel better about next week."
-credit: ford racing
