Beware: The Stealth Bomber

  Matt Kenseth at the wheel, on Richmond's giant infield TV (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   RICHMOND, Va.
   Want a dark horse in the NASCAR playoffs?
   Consider Matt Kenseth.
   The Stealth Bomber.
   Yeah, yeah, he hasn't won anything in quite a while, since February '09 out in California.
   Yeah, he hasn't really been that spectacular this season. Only one top-five finish since back in the spring, that fifth at Michigan a few weeks back.
   And, yeah, it wasn't that long ago, Chicago in July, I think, that Kenseth was griping about not having a good handle on his cars.
   And, yeah, he's already on his third crew chief of the season. Started with Drew Blickensderfer. Then Todd Parrott took over for a couple months. Now it's veteran Jimmy Fennig on the pit box.
    And, yeah, he's only led 35 laps all season.
    Toast?
    Fork?
    Uh, before you write this guy off this fall, consider this:
    -- He did win the 2003 tour championship;
    -- He's got 18 tour wins;
    -- And if you check out his finishing average so far this season, you might be surprised to see that only three other drivers have a better record: Kenseth is averaging a 12.52 finish each weekend, just behind Kevin Harvick's 9.8, Carl Edwards' 12.0, and Jeff Gordon's 12.12.
   That's right, Matt Kenseth, over the year's first 25 races, has a better finishing average than Mr. Four-time, Jimmie Johnson (14.92).
   Hmmmm.
   Now let's concede that if this championship chase becomes a home run derby, like Johnson has turned it into the last few years, Kenseth probably won't do it.
   However, if Edwards (Kenseth's teammate) is correct that this year's title run will likely be determined more by mistakes than by home runs, Kenseth might just be a good bet.
  
  

  Game Face: Matt Kenseth ponders his chances for a second NASCAR championship (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   And Johnson, for the first time in quite a while, suddenly appears vulnerable. Certainly he isn't known for charging through August, but only one top-five since Daytona in July? That's not championship-caliber running.
   If Johnson doesn't backup last weekend's third at Atlanta, well, this could be a wide open title run.
   And consider this too: Johnson has led far more miles than anyone else on the tour this season (and does have five wins) – three times as many miles in fact as tour leader Harvick.
   But, uh, Harvick is the tour leader.
   Kenseth certainly isn't charging toward the playoffs with banners waving. But then that's not his style.
   Patience, patience, stealth.
   Kenseth of course is the very reason for the creation of the chase in the first place. His romp to the 2003 title was brutally methodical, and he all but wrapped up the title quite early in the fall.
    So how does Kenseth see this title run shaping up?
    "They have all been tough for me...because we haven't won one," Kenseth deadpanned.
    "They are all tough.
     "Every race is tough."
     But Kenseth appears right-on here: "Just watching from the outside, it is hard to pick a favorite right now.
    "There have been different parts of the season where guys look really strong, and then they struggle a little bit."
     Sure, Kenseth, like everyone else, pins the bulls-eye on Johnson: "Until somebody beats them, it is still theirs."
     And when the chase kicks off in Loudon, N.H., next weekend Johnson will be back atop the standings (unless Denny Hamlin wins Saturday night's 400 here).
    Kenseth admits he's not set the world on fire the last couple of years. After winning Daytona and California back to back to open 2009, he went into a slump.
    But since early July his Jack Roush teammates have caught fire again, particularly Edwards.
   Now Kenseth does appear to have been slow to take to whatever new chassis setups the Roush engineers have discovered.
   And Fennig too is 'old-school.'
   But as Edwards and Greg Biffle have shown, the Roush stuff is right again. And that new Ford FR9 engine appears stout, and now reliable.
   Kenseth is typically cautious about all this: "We have been running better lately, and been more consistent.
   "Greg and Carl have been running really well and have picked up their performance.
    "That gives me some encouragement that if we get everything right, maybe we can be a contender.
    "Greg has won a race (Pocono), and Carl ran second last week.
    "All our equipment seems to be running better. That gives us hope that if we can get things together, maybe we can contend."
    Three crew chiefs? Each move has raised eyebrows in rival camps....
    "Yeah, it takes three crew chiefs just to get me in the chase," Kenseth says with a self-deprecating grin. 
    "It has been going well. I have known Jimmy a long time; we worked together on the Nationwide series cars."
     But Kenseth points to one key issue – that ever since Robbie Reiser, his long-time crew chief, stepped out of that role at the end of 2007, to become general manager at the shop, Kenseth has been somewhat off-kilter.
   The Kenseth-Reiser pairing was highly successful. Without Reiser, Kenseth sometimes has appeared lost.
    "It has been an adjustment for me probably since Robbie stepped down....just because I was so used to that, and we knew how to handle each other," Kenseth says.
    But then Fennig has a reputation of his own as a hard-nosed, no-nonsense guy who knows how to get things done, a reputation he first earned back in his days with Bobby Allison.
   

   

   
Jimmy Fennig: Can the veteran crew chief pull off a championship with Kenseth? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

   
So, how does Kenseth like the idea of being a dark horse this fall?
   Well, he doesn't really like it all that much: "It doesn't matter to me really necessarily what people say....but I would rather be the guy out there leading laps and winning races, and be a legitimate contender."
    And that's been a while, he says.
    Still, there's something to be said about flying under the radar.
    Look at what's happening right now to once-high-flying Denny Hamlin, now struggling.
    Consider the pressure on Kevin Harvick.
    Consider the pressure on Jimmie Johnson.
    Consider the pressure on Jeff Gordon, whose last tour win was well over a year ago.
    Given all that, and the wacky double-file restarts, and triple green-white-checkers, and simple unpredictability this season....well, why not Kenseth?
   "If you look at what we did all year, I wouldn't be talking about us either, or saying we have a shot, as much as the top six or seven guys," Kenseth concedes. "We haven't really been in that position.
    "We haven't won.
    "Jeff Gordon hasn't won this year either, but at the beginning of the year he led a whole bunch of laps and was in a position to win a bunch of races.
     "I still have hopes we can do that the last 10 weeks.
    "If we can keep our consistency, we could have a shot at it.
    "But you can talk about it all day, but you have to go out there and do it -- compete on pit road, lead laps, and put yourself in position to win."
     So, will this title run be determined by the man hitting the most home runs, or, instead, the man making the fewest mistakes?
     That may well be up to Johnson himself to determine....
     Kenseth still recalls 2006, "the year we finished second to Jimmie (by just 35 points) -- and we didn't make any mistakes.
     "We were really consistent...but we didn't run well enough to win. He had a couple of bad races and yet came back to win all those races to beat us."
     And in every rival's camp, that's the image of – and worry about – Jimmie Johnson this fall.

     Matt Kenseth and daughter Kaylin Nicola (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)