Late wreck puts major dent in Kenseth’s title run

Late wreck puts major dent in Kenseth’s title run

 

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

 

(October 30, 2011)

 

MARTINSVILLE, Va.—Matt Kenseth was 36 laps from a respectable run Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, a track that has treated him unkindly in the past.

 

He restarted 12th on Lap 463 of the Tums Fast Relief 500, three positions ahead of Roush Fenway Racing teammate Carl Edwards, the driver he is pursuing in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

 

A lap later, however, Kenseth’s race went haywire. His No. 17 Ford collided with Kyle Busch’s No. 18 Toyota. In a chain-reaction wreck, Kenseth clobbered the Turn 3 wall. He finished 31st and fell from second in the standings, 14 points behind Edwards, to fifth, 36 points down.

 

“I don’t know what happened with the 18,” Kenseth said. “I felt like I left him some room on the outside, but everybody was kind of slow and checked up. I had a run under him and was almost to his door, and all of a sudden we just got together.

 

“I honestly don’t know if it was my fault—if I squeezed him or if he came down—because there were some slow cars on the straightaway, but I almost think he must have come down, because we hit really hard, and then I must have had a flat tire and didn’t know it. I went into (Turn) 3 and couldn’t steer or couldn’t stop it and wrecked all those guys (Joey Logano, Mark Martin and Juan Pablo Montoya).”

 

That, more than the running battle Kenseth had with Brian Vickers, proved Kenseth’s undoing.

 

It also dropped Busch to a 27th-place finish and all but ended his hopes for a first Sprint Cup title.

 

“The 17 got into us coming off Turn 2—I don’t know if he cut his right front (tire) or not,” Dave Rogers, Busch’s crew chief, said after the race. “Then he got into Turn 3 and 17 had his tires locked up and drove into our left-rear quarter.

 

“I’d like to think it’s good, hard, clean racing at Martinsville, and we’re a victim of circumstance at a short track. It caught Kyle by surprise, and he didn’t know he was going to take a shot in the left rear and he did.”