Matt Kenseth posted a career-best third at Darlington. Credit: Autostock

Kenseth dodges yearly Darlington disaster

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Matt Kenseth's third-place finish Saturday night in the Dodge Charger 500 was far less satisfying than a victory.

Still, there were so many positives to be gained from his career-best at Darlington Raceway in 13 tries, that he was all smiles afterward.

	Stats at a Glance Matt Kenseth at Darlington Year St. Fin. Laps Status 1999 31 37 145 crash 2000 16 6 293 running 2000 24 33 286 running 2001 30 19 292 running 2001 28 23 365 running 2002 34 8 293 running 2002 9 37 325 running 2003 12 8 293 running 2003 6 14 367 running 2004 15 31 289 running 2004 9 20 365 running 2005 31 26 367 running 2006 31 3 367 running

"I feel good," Kenseth said. "I feel like our team is on the right track."

Kenseth closed to within one point of second-place Tony Stewart, and is now 94 behind points leader Jimmie Johnson.

Kenseth's most recent top 10 at Darlington came in 2003, a place where he's had only four top-10 finishes.

"When you run good at your good places, that's one thing," Kenseth said. "But when you run good at your weaker tracks, that's another.

"I feel like the team is pretty strong right now. They're giving me competitive cars at every racetrack we go to and I don't know if we've ever had a year like that.

"It's still early in the year, but it feels good that we're competitive at most of these places we go to."

Kenseth has led at least one lap in eight of the 11 races this season, a far cry from last year, when he was nowhere near the top 10 and had led 109 total laps.

That makes Kenseth appreciate his situation at Roush Racing even more.

Consider the case of Kenseth teammate, Greg Biffle. With his victory Saturday night, Biffle closed to 14th in the standings, 106 points out of 10th place and a spot in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

"I think [Biffle's] in better shape than we were a year ago because I think that he's been performing much better than we did last year," Kenseth said. "Last year at this time we were out of the points because we had some problems.

"We ran good at times and had problems, but we also ran bad at times. We weren't running like [Biffle and crew chief Doug Richert]. They've led almost every race and have been a contender to win almost every race, just like they started last year and finished last year and finished second in the points.

"I think there's a difference there. I think he's a very solid bet to make [the Chase]. He'd have to have a lot of bad things happen not to make the Chase and not be a championship contender right down to the wire.

"If you could look at a sheet and pick out five or six cars that you thought were gonna run up front each and every week and have a shot at the championship, he for sure would be on top of a lot of those lists, I think."

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But with the way he and his Robbie Reiser led team have run this season, Kenseth would not be far off Biffle's mark.

"I've got a lot of confidence in the team," Kenseth said. "These guys are really giving me great stuff.

"It's kind of like I said, when you come to your bad places and run good it feels really good. We had a great car at Richmond, probably one of the best cars I've had there.

"I know people say that all the time when they break, but we really did and it was kind of disappointing to break there, but I still felt good that we had a good car.

"You know you're gonna have some bad things happen during the year and some good things, so I kind of just chalked that up to one of the bad things and move on to the next race.

"We had a great car there and we had a great car here. It was good for us [because] we ran really competitively. We had good pit stops and had a much better car than I thought we were gonna have, so it feels really good to come here and run that good.

"We haven't run good in a Cup car here in a long, long time. I haven't finished on the lead lap here in a long time [2003], so it feels good to come here and run good."