Points leader holds ground at Infineon

SONOMA, Calif. -- Matt Kenseth climbed out of the DeWalt Ford Sunday afternoon and took a sizeable swig of Gatorade. Big enough, in fact, to choke himself.

That's the only time he choked all weekend.

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Not known for his road-course prowess, Kenseth entered Sunday's Dodge/Save-Mart 350 looking only to survive the inevitable mayhem produced by 110 laps of bobbing and weaving on Infineon Raceway's windy, 11-turn course.

He hoped to escape without taking a hit in the point standings, which he led by 185 points over Dale Earnhardt, Jr. when the week began.

He qualified fourth, a career-high effort at Infineon.

Check.

He finished 14th, also a career-best outing at the two-mile course.

Check.

He failed to extend his points lead.

No check. No matter.

Kenseth persevered through early-race tire trouble to finish in the top 20 for the first time at Infineon and lost just 11 points in the title chase. He now leads Jeff Gordon -- who moved past Earnhardt into second in the standings with a runner-up finish -- by 174 points as the series moves to Daytona in two weeks.

"Today was OK. We were never great, probably always a 10th-, 15th-place car but through some wrecks and some stuff that happened, at times we had good track position," Kenseth said.

"But I never thought them guys could make it as far as they made it on fuel or we would have pitted earlier to have the chance to be up there, too. But it just didn't work out that way, and I'm satisfied with 14th it's a lot better than we've ever done here before."

And it could have been much, much worse.

Kenseth was running in the top 10 on Lap 35 when his car got extremely loose. Unsure of the problem, he continued on though his first inkling was a tire was going down. On the next lap, he lost a left-rear tire in the esses, costing him several positions.

"I had a flat there. We were running in the top 10 and I felt like we could have been there all day," he said. "I thought I had a flat but I wasn't sure, and I should have ducked in the pits right away. But I waited a lap, and you can't wait a lap here.

"The whole thing came off the wheel and I lost a bunch of time, so it was just my mistake," Kenseth continued. "I made a dumb mistake there not being sure, but overall had a good day and were able to salvage a good finish."

Having worked his way through the field all day, Kenseth pitted with 20 laps remaining when the caution flew for Tony Raines' spin in Turn 2. He restarted 24th, but with new tires was able surge to 14th as the checkers flew.

"Yeah, we all were (racing hard) -- me and Junior and the 48 and the 20 all had new tires and were picking on them guys that didn't have new tires," Kenseth said. "It was fun driving up through there out of control. It was out of control, but really fun."

Though Gordon moved into his highest points ranking of the season, he is well aware the challenge that lies ahead.

"We were hoping to gain on those guys -- Kenseth, I'm telling you, he's feeling it," Gordon said. "He's getting up on the wheel when he needs to and it's going to be tough to run those guys down."

He's not one to choke on the track, after all.