INDIANAPOLIS – Around him, before one of the biggest restarts of his career, Matt Kenseth had no friends.
Perhaps this was Kenseth’s last chance to win a Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Three times before Sunday he had finished second on this legendary track, but the former Cup champion, who was brought back after not competing in 2019, had never kissed the bricks.
Before the race, the 48-year-old said he was more focused on the week-to-week than on looking forward to whether he will return to Chip Ganassi Racing or the series after this season.
As he lined up alongside leader Kevin Harvick for an overtime restart, Kenseth faced the challenge of trying to topple one of the sport’s best drivers and the reigning race winner.
And Harvick had help.
Behind him was Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Cole Custer. Behind Kenseth was Harvick’s teammate Aric Almirola.
Kenseth was surrounded by SHR cars.
“Aric was great,” said Kenseth. “He was ready and he pushed me. I didn’t do the best job taking off. I didn’t want to be penalized for skipping the beginning. I started to go, he pushed me.
“It didn’t seem like Kevin was going to go, so I hesitated with that beat that made Kevin come out.”
Harvick was waiting for Custer to hit his rear bumper and give him a push.
“Cole had a very good restart, he was able to join my bumper,” said Harvick. “By being right in the front row, especially at the end of the race, everyone will try their best to put themselves in a position to have the best restart.”
Kenseth said: “(Almirola) still pushed me there pretty well. It couldn’t go that fast. “
Harvick said: “We were clean before we got to Turn 1. At that time, you have clean air, and those guys were side by side. We were able to escape right there. Cole was definitely a big part of helping us win this race in the end. ”
The result was a fourth runner-up in Indy for Kenseth.
But it was the previous reboot that Kenseth lamented. He came with 22 laps to go.
Denny Hamlin led and restarted in the outside lane. Harvick was inside the first row. Kenseth was fourth and started behind Hamlin. The outer lane was the preferred lane and had allowed the car to restart the fourth to advance to the second shortly after the green greeted again.
Kenseth could only manage one spot and ran third behind Hamlin and Harvick.
“Really restarting before that was our chance,” said Kenseth.
With Hamlin and Harvick ahead, they controlled the race. Harvick took over after Hamlin crashed when a right front tire exploded with eight laps remaining.
Although he didn’t win, second place was Kenseth’s best since he started driving No. 42 after Kyle Larson was fired for uttering a racial slur during a simulation racing event while the series was not competing.
Sunday’s finale followed an 11th and 12th place finish in both Pocono races last weekend.
“I feel like we had done some things in Pocono that really seemed to work for me and directionally they seemed to be better,” Kenseth said. “The car drove pretty well here all day too. I hope we can bring that momentum to Kentucky, keep moving forward with that. Let’s hope we get to the front like we did today, running to the front where this team belongs. “
Kenseth said such finals like Sunday’s help confidence.
“Every time you run well, you build more confidence, not just for me but for the team and everyone involved,” he said. “Running badly has the opposite effect. We certainly had a good day starting in Darlington. It was super sloppy and rusty, we still finished tenth.
“Just downhill from there. We went back and went a little faster. I hit the wall, I had a bad ending. Nothing was really going well. Like I said, we had a couple of decent races last weekend with no mistakes, no issues, no issues, we got good results. Today we were able to be competitive, run in advance ”.
The question is whether this is his last chance to win at Indy or will he return next year?
