Matt Kenseth: "(Kansas) is a place -- here and Chicago -- where we struggle a little bit more than maybe some of the other mile and a halves, so we really tried to stress finding a good race setup that will work good for us." Credit: Autostock

Kenseth hoping for better starts, finishes

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- His top-10 qualifying streak ended at two, but Matt Kenseth's improvement in Bud Pole Qualifying continues to be impressive.

Kenseth qualified 15th for the Banquet 400. It was nothing earth-shattering, but certainly solid for a driver who has never been one of the best at qualifying. Kenseth even out-qualified teammates Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and Mark Martin.

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Disregarding the Daytona 500 (the field is not set by qualifying), Kenseth qualified 20th or better just four times in the first half.

But Roush's engine program is considerably better than it was earlier in the year, and it shows. Kenseth has already qualified 20th or better five times in the second half, even though three qualifying sessions were rained out.

"It's better than we normally do, so that is good," said Kenseth. "For some reason, the last couple of weeks we have done a little better job. We've had really good motors and we've been able to run a little quicker."

For the first time in 2004, Roush Racing had the new-generation Ford cylinder heads for all five of its teams last week, and the change was noticeable.

"With a new engine combination, it always takes a while to make it better, so this is the first year working with the new motor and the new head and all," Kenseth said. "They just keep getting better."

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Kenseth needs some of that horsepower help at Kansas. He's fallen 137 points out of the Nextel Cup points lead, mainly because his pit road accident at Dover, where he was saddled with a 32nd-place finish.

It doesn't help that his history at Kansas is checkered. In fact, the Kansas event in 2003 was the most frustrating he had. He wrecked in practice and had to go to a backup, but the backup handled terribly in the race. It didn't matter, as he crashed while trying to avoid a crash on Lap 69.

Kenseth tested at Kansas for this year's event, but he said the team only had a "fair" test.

"We did a lot of race runs and probably put 500 miles on here testing to try to get something that we could be fast with," said Kenseth, who hasn't had a top-five in three Kansas starts.

"This is a place -- here and Chicago -- where we struggle a little bit more than maybe some of the other mile and a halves, so we really tried to stress finding a good race setup that will work good for us."