Catchfence

2009 NNS Matt Kenseth (Photo Credit: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images for NASCAR)

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.”

- PCGCampbell for Ford Racing, Press Release