Lady Luck Shines on Kenseth in Win

LAS VEGAS — Matt Kenseth, whose five wins last year were the most by any NASCAR Winston Cup driver, got his first win this season when he ran away with the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 before a sellout crowd of 140,000 Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Some remarkable pit work, coupled with a fortuitous “mistake,” enabled Jack Roush’s driver to finish nearly 10 seconds ahead of the Dale Earnhardt Inc. pair of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip. Chevrolets swept the next four positions after Kenseth. A third DEI driver, Steve Park, finished 10th.

It was the fourth win in six Las Vegas races for Roush’s team. Jeff Burton won in 1999 and 2000 and Mark Martin in 1998.

“I guess the key to my winning was a mistake I made in not pitting [on Lap 131] when I was supposed to and it turned out to be one of those things that worked to our benefit,” said Kenseth. “I was supposed to pit, but when Dale Jr. stayed out, I did too.”

That gave Kenseth track position he might not have had had he pitted and dropped back in the field. As it was, Earnhardt and Kenseth kept going and when the field regrouped they were first and second.

“If we had pitted, we would have been buried back in 12th and would have had a much harder time getting back to the front. Then, when we pitted later, our crew did a fantastic job.”

With several of the leaders taking only two tires and fuel to conserve time on their final pit stop, Kenseth’s crew made a four-tire change in 16.4 seconds, close to what others were clocking with two-tire changes.

“I can’t believe the year we had last year and that start this year we’ve had,” Kenseth said. “It’s just a huge confidence boost for our team. We had a little turnover in people and we’ve got a couple of new tire changers and a new tire carrier out there, so the confidence for those guys is big.

“Last week [at Rockingham] they were down on themselves because we didn’t quite have the pit stop we wished and it possibly could have taken us out of contention. This week they won the race for me. If they hadn’t gotten me out in front of the 8 car [Earnhardt] and got that great pit stop on the last stop, who knows? Something might have happened and we might not have won.”

Kenseth earned $365,875. Waltrip’s third-place finish moved him into the Winston Cup points lead after three races. He has 461 points to 458 for Kenseth.

The race, on a sunny but chilly day in the desert, was a strange one. For the first 100 laps it was a high-speed sprint, with no caution flags. Then, in the final 167 laps there were seven cautions for 30 laps.

And that didn’t include an incident on the final lap when Jimmie Johnson, running sixth, was tapped in the rear by Sterling Marlin. The nudge sent Johnson spinning in the tri-oval grass to an 11th-place finish.

“I don’t really know what happened,” Johnson said. “I hope it wasn’t intentional. I raced clean with everybody all day long and didn’t put a tire mark on anyone and then I get turned coming to the checkers and lose five spots. That kind of bums me out.”

The day’s biggest incident, which knocked pre-race favorites Jeff Gordon and Las Vegas native Kurt Busch out of contention, occurred on Lap 175 when Mike Skinner collided with Rusty Wallace. Gordon and Busch, along with rookie Larry Foyt and Todd Bodine, had no place to go. Blinded by smoke and dust, Gordon hit Skinner and their sliding cars collected the others.

“I was going around the 4 car [Skinner] and I guess it got loose and got into me,” Wallace said. “I know he didn’t mean it. It was just one of those racing things.

“I hit pretty hard. It caved the top of my helmet in. The helmet did its job.”

Ryan Newman, last year’s top rookie, did an outstanding job in coming from two laps down to finish seventh, the first Dodge finisher. He lost one lap when he pitted with what he thought was a flat tire, although it turned out not to be. And he lost another lap when a windshield tore off and covered the grille.

“The motor went to 260 [degrees] and we had to come in so we wouldn’t blow up the motor,” Newman said. “The way we ran to get our laps back, we had the car to beat at the end.”

Dale Jarrett, last week’s winner at Rockingham, slammed hard into the Turn 2 wall after being hit by Park. It was the incident that led to Kenseth’s “mistake” in not pitting with everyone else on Lap 131.

“You’ve got the same people doing stupid stuff back there and there’s no reason for that,” Jarrett said. “I was sitting there running my race and working on the car, and you’ve got people that I don’t know what they’re doing. Unfortunately, it’s the same people that do it.”

Casey Mears, driving a Dodge for Chip Ganassi, was the highest finishing rookie at 15th.

“That was solid, good and solid,” said the Bakersfield youngster. “We ran well all day. I learned a lot.”