NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Dickies 500

Topics:  Dickies 500

Matt Kenseth
November 8, 2009

FORT WORTH, TEXAS

KERRY THARP: Matt Kenseth is today's third-place finisher. Matt drives the No. 17 DeWalt Ford for Roush Fenway Racing. Matt, talk about, in your opinion, how things unfolded out there today.
MATT KENSETH: They were good for us. When we knew we were short on fuel, I thought when we came and got tires with 25 to go, fuel, we actually had a shot to win if some of those guys didn't make it. The 2 was fast all day. Pat Tryson is famous for calling fuel mileage races. I'm happy Kurt won. He was really fast all day. Wasn't like somebody running 20th won the race. It was cool that Kurt pulled that off. They were able to go a couple extra laps, and be fast, stay out there. We got tires, ran, raced as hard as we could all day. I thought we had a third- or fourth-place car on performance. Even the fuel mileage, we still finished third.
Overall it was a really great day for us. We started 30th. Really had to battle hard for it all day long.

Q. Turn two seemed to really be a problem for everybody the entire weekend. As the track changed, how much more difficult did that turn become?
MATT KENSETH: It's always been difficult. I mean, the cool thing about what we do is we go to different tracks every week that present different challenges. This track, the transition always has been flat going into the corner, coming out of the corner, which isn't a bad thing, it's just different. Every track has a unique personality. Turn one and two is a fast turn, probably faster than three and four. When you come off there, the banking goes away. There's some issues with the wind there this weekend, tailwind. Not so much tonight. Gets narrow off there. Easy to hit the wall off there. Hard to run side-by-side in dirty air. Just a challenging corner.
KERRY THARP: Matt, thank you very. Good luck at Phoenix.
MATT KENSETH: Thank you.