Sunoco Pit Move: Chicago

When it came down to getting fresh tires or maintaining track position, crew chief Robbie Reiser's decision was an easy one. That's because it had worked for other teams all day.

With 40 laps remaining in Sunday's USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, Matt Kenseth's best chance at victory was predicated on not losing ground in the pits. With 20 laps on the current set of tires, Reiser decided to have Kenseth make a fuel-only stop, leaving him directly behind leader Tony Stewart when the race restarted a few laps later.

Kenseth challenged for the lead, running side-by-side with Stewart for a time before falling back and settling for second, his seventh top-five and 13th top-10 finish of the season.

"It feels good to come home second," Kenseth said. "I had that one shot at [Stewart] and I just couldn't quite finish the pass.

"If I could've finished that pass on the restart, I would've liked to have been in front of him and tried to hold him off. I don't know if I could've or not, but I would've liked to have that chance."

Kenseth put the nose of his No. 17 Ford in front on Lap 232 but wasn't able to complete the pass.

"We ran side-by-side for a couple of laps, and when you're on the bottom and you're racing for position, it's hard to hang on to," Kenseth said. "If it's early in the race, people will give you a little extra room to hang on to your car, but when it's at the end for position, you're both racing as hard as you can.

"I stayed under him for about two laps and finally I went off into [Turn 3], we went up in there side-by-side, and I got so loose I was afraid I was going to wipe us both out so I had to get back behind him."

Kenseth admitted going with no tires on his final stop was probably his only chance to get past Stewart.

"He probably had the superior car anyway, but on that one restart it was fun to get in there," he said. "I wish I could finish the pass and see how much better the car would've been in clean air, and at least try to hold him off."

Choosing to pit for fuel only was a relatively simple decision for Reiser, since the strategy had worked for other teams all day. Early in the race, Kevin Harvick and Reed Sorenson opted not to pit when the rest of the leaders came in for service and Ryan Newman, Stewart and Jeff Gordon took no new rubber.

When Harvick showed no appreciable drop in speed when the race resumed, everyone on pit road then knew that tires would not make enough difference to overcome the dreaded aerodynamic push from running behind another car.

And as Kenseth said afterward, sometimes second is a successful day.

"It really frustrates you when you lose and you have the best car and I don't feel like we had the best car [Sunday]," Kenseth said. "I don't feel like we gave it away, I don't think we had anything taken away from us. I think my team did a great job to get us home second.

"You can only go as fast your racecar can carry you, and I feel we got everything out of it. We had good pit stops and feel like we got everything out of it on the track."