| | MOVING UP | For Kenseth, Dover marks another big step forward | |
| | David Caraviello / Nascar.com In an attempt to turn their season around, Chip Bolin dusted off an old friend: Roush Fenway chassis RK-473.
It was the oldest car in the No. 17 team's stable, dating back to the race at Dover International Speedway last fall. But at the moment, Bolin needed something tried and true. With his team slipping further away from the Chase with every passing week, the first-year crew chief pulled out a proven car for two of his driver's best tracks. And the results were evident Sunday, when Matt Kenseth recorded a fourth-place finish on Dover's Monster Mile to continue his climb back from the depths of the Sprint Cup standings.
Kenseth's best result this season, and his third consecutive of seventh or better, pulled him within 95 points of the 12th and final Chase position, currently held by Kasey Kahne. One month ago, after a 38th-place finish at Richmond, he was 22nd in the standings, 204 points out, and all but written off. How things have changed after a sixth at Darlington, a seventh at Lowe's Motor Speedway, and the fourth-place result Sunday in the Delaware capital.
"We're going the right way," Kenseth said. "I feel like we're on the upswing. Every week, we've been getting a little bit better over the last month or so. I'm proud of these DeWalt guys. I know we still have some work to do to be a contender and win, but we're getting close."
A little familiarity certainly helped. Good 'ol RK-473 was the same car Kenseth had finished 10th in at Bristol, and Bolin plans to use the same vehicle at Michigan in two weeks. And Dover has always been one of Kenseth's best tracks, a place where he finished sixth in his Cup debut as a substitute for an injured Bill Elliott in 1998, and has since recorded 12 top-10s in 20 career starts.
But this little run the No. 17 team has strung together is the product of more than just the racetrack and the car. This is a unit that's thrived on consistency on and off the track, knocking out top-fives year after year with a similar cast of characters wearing black and gold. This season, there are more new faces on the over-the-wall crew; longtime crew chief Robbie Reiser departed for a general manager's role with Roush Fenway; and team engineer Bolin moved to the top of the pit box. And as he found, it's not without its hurdles that a number cruncher becomes a personnel manager.
"I'll admit, the weakest link in the deal is me," Bolin said Sunday. "Because I was always the guy sitting in the front of the truck up here figuring out what to put in the car to make it go fast. And Robbie made sure that it had four wheels on it, and they were all tight, and that everybody got here like they were supposed to get here, and that the plane left Charlotte on time. Whenever you have to start learning to focus on that, it distracts from what you're good at, and you want to gravitate toward what you've always done. I've had to learn to balance my priorities. I've learned that, and these guys haven't given up. Everything I ask them to do, they do, and we're slowly getting there."
The first 10 weeks of the season were an unusual roller-coaster ride for a team that's always been among the smoothest-performing in the garage, one that may not win a lot but is almost always in the running. Which is why it was so strange to see Kenseth, who's made every Chase since the format was implemented, languishing closer to the bottom of the standings than the top.
"In the big scheme of things, we should be worried about getting in the Chase," Bolin said. But for us, we needed to be able to put racecars on the racetrack that could run in the top five every week, like everyone at DeWalt and everyone at Roush Fenway expects us to do. We didn't do that there for about three weeks, and it got us behind. Now that we're back doing what we're supposed to be doing, we're running what we're supposed to be running. As long as we keep doing that, we'll be fine. You're looking at a group, I think it was '05 we were still 350 points out of 10th. So nobody here is going to give up. As long as we keep doing what we're supposed to be doing, we'll be OK."
Put competitive cars on the racetrack, Bolin believes, and the numbers will take care of themselves. With 13 races remaining in NASCAR's regular season, the Chase is a much more realistic prospect for the No. 17 team than it was just three weeks ago. But still, Kenseth is taking nothing for granted.
"I don't think we're back in championship form yet," he said. "We're closer, but I don't think we're back to where we need to be to be a serious contender. We're definitely moving back toward the top 12 and things are going in the right direction, but we still have some work to do."
| | Posted June 02, 2008 , 7:26 pm EST
Last Updated June 03, 2008 , 8:18 pm EST | | | | | | |
