Kenseth Unhappy Despite Likelihood Of 5th Straight Chase Berth

Like death and taxes, it seems Matt Kenseth earning a spot in NASCAR's Chase for the Nextel Cup championship field is one of life's certainties.<br/><br/>But, unlike other former Cup champions

Saturday, August 11th 2007, 6:00 am

By: News On 6

Like death and taxes, it seems Matt Kenseth earning a spot in NASCAR's Chase for the Nextel Cup championship field is one of life's certainties.

But, unlike other former Cup champions like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch, it seems like Kenseth is often overlooked and underestimated.

A year ago, the Roush Fenway Racing driver did make some waves by having to make a late-season charge to qualify for the Chase. That made him 4-for-4 in qualifying for the 10-race stock car playoff that began the year after Kenseth won the 2003 series title under the old points system.

The quiet man from Wisconsin is almost a sure thing to again make the field for the Chase, which has been expanded to 12 drivers. Kenseth is third in the points, trailing only Gordon and Denny Hamlin, heading into Sunday's road race at Watkins Glen International.

But, as one of only two Ford drivers in the top 12 â€“ and facing a phalanx of powerful Chevrolets -- Kenseth has expressed doubts about his team's ability to win another title this year.

"I didn't say we weren't good enough to win a championship," Kenseth said. "I said, at the moment, right now, I don't feel like we're performing good enough to win a championship. But, certainly, my team is good enough, our equipment is good enough and reliable enough. We finish races and we do all of those things, so I think it's certainly a possibility we can do that. But, just right now on performance, I don't feel like our performance is as good as the 24 (Gordon), the 48 (Johnson), the 20 (Stewart), the 11 (Hamlin) â€“ a bunch of those (Chevrolet) guys up front."

Besides expanding the Chase from 10 to 12 drivers this year, NASCAR has also set up a seeding process based on race wins. Each of the Chase drivers will be reset to 5,000 points for the start of the playoff, plus a 10-point bonus for each win.

That's one of the things that concerns Kenseth, whose No. 17 team has only one win this season.

"We know we need to get that better," he said. "As far as being ahead of them in points, when you look at the Chase, Jimmie is at least 30 points ahead of us (with four wins) going into the chase. It doesn't matter where we finish before the Chase with this new point system, so everybody is grouped up the same, except for race wins. So, even if he finishes 12th in points, 500 points behind us, he's still got a 30-point jump on us going into the chase."

Still, nobody should forget about Kenseth, who finished second and third the past two seasons. He always seems to be there at the end.
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ONGOING FRIENDSHIP: NASCAR's Casey Mears and NFL quarterback David Carr were football teammates at Stockdale High School in Bakersfield, Calif., developing a friendship in the 1990s that has continued over the years.

After graduation, their career choices took them in different
directions, with Mears, who played halfback and fullback in high school, pursuing his dream of being a professional race car driver and Carr setting records at Fresno State University before being selected No. 1 overall by the Houston Texas in the 2002 NFL draft.

Their lives intersected again in April when Carr signed with the Carolina Panthers as a free agent and moved to Charlotte, N.C., where Mears makes his home.

On Memorial Day weekend, Carr watched from pit road as Mears won the 600-mile race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, the Hendrick Motorsports driver's first victory at NASCAR's highest level. And when the NASCAR season wraps up in November, Mears hopes to attend a Panthers game or two and lend his support to Carr as he takes the field with his new team.

"David is just a great guy and an outstanding athlete," Mears said. "I was nowhere near his league back in high school, but I like to think I was pretty scrappy and I know I had fun trying to keep up. It's been fun to follow his career as I was building my own, too. We haven't really been in the same place since high school, but then David signed on with the Panthers and all of sudden we were living in the same town again. It's a pretty neat twist of fate, and it's been great to have him around.

"I think we both feel very fortunate to be doing what we're doing right now in our careers," Mears added. "Back then, we were just two kids from Bakersfield with big dreams and now we get to live them out."
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BIG BUCKS: Tony Stewart's latest big event at his Eldora Speedway has produced a $600,000 bonanza for the Victory Junction Gang Camp.

Stewart promotes the charity race each year at the dirt track he owns in Rossburg, Ohio, inviting a group of his Nextel Cup competitors to join him in the event shown live on HBO. This year's race, on June 6, was won by Carl Edwards.

The chief benefactor of the event known as the Nextel Prelude to the Dream is the year-round camp for children 7 to 15 years old who have an assortment of life-threatening illnesses.

"It's tough to put into words what that kind of a donation means to Victory Junction," said Kyle Petty, whose family founded the Victory Junction Gang Camp in Randleman, N.C., in honor of their late son Adam. "Getting the camp built was a huge undertaking that took a lot of money from a lot of generous donations, but running the camp and maintaining its medical facilities have proven to be just as expensive.

"The success of the Prelude to the Dream has ensured the camp's success, which allows everyone who works at Victory Junction to focus on one thing -- making sure the kids who come to camp get to do the things they can't always do in a hospital, and that's the ability to simply be a kid."

Also receiving support from the race proceeds were the Autism Society of Delaware and Motor Racing Outreach, each receiving $25,000. Another $150,000 went to the Tony Stewart Foundation, which supports groups caring for chronically ill children, drivers injured in motorsports activities and charitable outfits specializing in the protection of various animal species.

"We learned a lot from this year's race, and we're already planning for next year," Stewart said."
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STAT OF THE WEEK: If Juan Pablo Montoya wins Sunday at Watkins Glen he will make NASCAR history.

The former open-wheel racing star would become the first stock car driver to win at three road courses in the same season. Montoya already has won the Busch Series event at Mexico City and the Cup race at Sonoma, Calif., this year.

The only other NSACAR drivers to have won as many as two road races in the same year are Ernie Irvan in 1992 (Cup at Sonoma and Busch at Watkins Glen) and Darrell Waltrip in 1986 (Cup at Riverside, Calif., and Busch at Road Atlanta).