Kenseth keeps piling up the points on challengers

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- For weeks now, we've heard all the reasons why Matt Kenseth can't win the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup championship.

For weeks now, all Kenseth has done is distance himself from the field.

At what point will people become believers? They'll probably be convinced only when Kenseth gets the $4.25 million check from Winston at the awards ceremony.

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Until then, Kenseth will keep attacking, just like he has the past few weeks. He's become a silent assassin of sorts, cutting his contenders with a surgeon-like precision.

On Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, you didn't see Kenseth most of the race, and then all of a sudden, he was in second place. That's where he finished when the checkered flag dropped, padding his already large Winston Cup points lead.

Kenseth might not be hitting both his leading contenders at the same time, but he's been uncanny in getting away from them.

	Kenseth has won just once this year, but he is second in the series with nine top-five finishes. Credit: AP

After the event at Infineon Raceway, where Junior and Gordon both gained ground, Kenseth was 174 ahead of Gordon and 176 ahead of Earnhardt Jr.

Since then, Kenseth has tried to run away and hide. He's 286 ahead of Earnhardt Jr. and 318 ahead of Gordon.

Sure, Kenseth could blow up three races in a row, but that doesn't seem likely, not with the year he's had so far.

"I don't really feel in a zone," Kenseth said. "I do feel fortunate that we made it to the end of all these races. I feel really great coming out of (Indianapolis).

"Some people have been saying that the finishes the last few weeks haven't been as good as maybe they'd been. We've been finishing 12th and 13th and ninth and seventh. I was happy to be a front-runner (Sunday)."

That's all Kenseth wants to do. He's come to understand than he can't win every race, so he and his Robbie Reiser-led crew will fight and claw for every position.

"We ran competitive," Kenseth said. "We called the race in a competitive manner, we drove as hard as we can drive it. That's how we've been approaching it all year - just to go out and do the best we can.

"Still, we've got a lot of racing to do, and we've got to keep it up."

VIDEO CLIPS Green flag Play video Dale Jarrett's jackman is hit Play video John Andretti crashes on Lap 47 Play video A seven-car accident bunches the field with 16 laps to go Play video Kevin Harvick pulls away in the final laps Play video Victory Lane Play video Hear from the top finishers at Indianapolis Play video

His car owner, Jack Roush, hasn't won a Winston Cup title in the 15 years he's been fielding cars in the series. Roush has come close several times, so he isn't about to start cashing the championship check yet.

Still, you can almost hear the optimism in his voice when he talks about Kenseth's season.

"I've got my fingers crossed, and holding my breath, just trying to focus on the things that had caused us to fail and not be able to finish, and hoping it holds out," Roush said. "We haven't had any bad luck this year, and a lot of it is luck.

"We haven't had bad luck; other people had bad luck."

Yes, a lot of it is about luck. But not all of it.

On Sunday, Kenseth was one of the drivers who stretched fuel mileage to the first caution. That was by design, for the team wanted to make sure they knew what they had.

A smart move, but it nearly cost them. Kenseth lost a lot of track position when he pitted for fuel, but caught a break when another caution came out soon after.

Late in the race, after coming through the field, Kenseth found himself in the lead. Everyone would have to stop for fuel again, but Kenseth was going to wait as long as possible.

Kenseth admitted that he's not a master strategist -- "I just need to shut up and drive the car sometimes," he said -- but he and Reiser have built a good rapport.

So even though Reiser kept Kenseth on the track as the leaders began to make pit stops, Kenseth wasn't terribly worried.

"I've been driving Robbie crazy the last month because I've been second-guessing everything he's been doing and making sure we're doing the right thing," Kenseth said. "It didn't seem like things have been working out the last few weeks, but he had it under control even.

"Even if we got the caution, we still had decent track position. If we didn't get the caution, I think we were in really good shape because we were just going to try to get gas at the end, and we actually were running about the same times as what Jamie (McMurray) was running after he pitted and got the two tires just because we were in front of the whole field.

"So Robbie knew what he was doing, and he did a great job calling the race."

	Kenseth chases Joe Nemechek heading into Turn 1 at Indy. Credit: Autostock

A yellow did come out with 21 laps to go when Kenseth was in the lead. The safe move would have been to change four tires, but Reiser and Kenseth decided to change two. They didn't come to Indy to count points.

"We're out here to try to win races," Kenseth said. "We did everything we could to try to win the race, and we came up a little bit short. If it would have went green, I think Robbie definitely had the strategy to win, and I think we would have been in good shape.

"When we put tires on our car, it was really, really fast in traffic, and we worked on that really hard yesterday.

"I thought we had a good car. It just seemed like we had to come from behind an awful lot today, but coming out of here finishing second is a great effort.

"I would have loved to have a little more time to catch Kevin (Harvick), because I know we had a little better tires than he did, but he got away to such a big lead when we were jockeying around with the 31 car."

Who says Kenseth doesn't care about winning? Who says he's just trying to pile up points?

Critics can go ahead and believe it. He'll just cut you to pieces.

"There's somewhat of a frustration of not winning," Kenseth said. "I feel like today was everything at the end. I don't think we had the car to win today. There's been a few times this year I felt like we had the car to beat, and we didn't get it done. That's part of it.

"I really want to get back to victory lane soon, but on the other hand, I'm very thankful for how we've been running. Only two years ago, we couldn't run in the top 20 to save our lives."

And now, it seems he can't finish outside the top 20.