Not resembling a driver who should retire anytime soon, Matt Kenseth returned to victory lane Sunday after a 51-race drought.
Since Jeff Gordon announced in January the 2015 season would be his last full campaign, the question of which star driver would retire next has been a popular one. And often Matt Kenseth has been on the receiving end of that question.
Yet each time he's been asked about potentially retiring Kenseth dismissed the idea, saying while he and Gordon may be the same age, 43, they are not equal in terms of wear-and-tear on their bodies. Gordon begin racing in NASCAR's top division in 1993, Kenseth's rookie season was 2000. While Gordon has dealt with a bad back for years, Kenseth has enjoyed almost near-perfect health.
And just as Gordon has remained competitive, Kenseth has done so as well. Though he didn't win his second Sprint Cup championship, two years ago the Joe Gibbs Racing driver enjoyed a brilliant season setting personal highs for wins and laps led.
However, since that seven-win 2013 season, Kenseth hadn't been back to Victory Lane. Although he came close several times, a 33rd-career win proved elusive with his drought extending to 51 races.
That winless streak came to an end Sunday, as Kenseth emerged victorious at wild and wet Bristol Motor Speedway. And just like that, any misgivings he may have had about himself were washed away in a race punctuated by four rain delays.
"Honestly, it wears on you a little bit," Kenseth said of not winning. "We had such a good 2013, we came a little short of the ultimate prize there, but we had such a great season, and last year there were some races we had some chances to win and just things wouldn't line up for us. We just couldn't get it to happen. Tonight was kind of the opposite. Everything worked out."
On a night when so many things went wrong for so many, Kenseth drove a near-perfect race.
For much of the Food City 500, Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch had the best cars, combining to lead 368 of a possible 511 laps. None of them, however, pushed Kenseth across the finish line as each of their bids for victory came undone by slip-ups.
Harvick, who led a race-high 184 and had finished second or better in nine of 10 races dating to last season, didn't see an immobilized David Ragan and crashed. Edwards was challenging Gordon for second with eight laps to go when he overdrove Turn 1 and smacked the wall, creating a multi-car incident that also involved Busch, who was mired in traffic due to an ill-advised decision to pit out of the lead a few laps before.
"I was racing really aggressively there at the end and the car was sticking and everything was going great and then I drove into Turn 1 and that was the first time I lifted off throttle and I just pitched sideways. It's 100 percent my fault.
"The outcome was not what we wanted and I made a big mistake."
Even after Harvick, Edwards and Busch eliminated themselves from contention, Kenseth still had to withstand Mother Nature's fury. As track workers cleaned up the carnage from the accident Edwards initiated, rain began falling again. Hoping to see the race reach its conclusion, officials kept drivers circling the track for several laps before issuing the second red flag of the night.
Shortly thereafter the rain stopped and the race resumed under NASCAR's overtime rules. Because he was the leader Kenseth had the preferred outside lane; nonetheless on a still wet track it would be easy for him to make a mistake. But Kenseth got a flawless restart and quickly created some distance between himself and the field.
All around it was a performance befitting his experience. Kenseth's No. 20 car was one of the few without any significant damage and when he needed to be on his game, the veteran executed. Not a bad night for someone who was asked about retirement just two days before.
"Matt might have 10 more years left in him or so," Gordon said. "I don 't think he's ready for that yet."
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