Two tires not enough for Kenseth to hold off No. 48

When Matt Kenseth stopped for two tires and fuel on Lap 300 of Sunday's Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, it looked like deja vu all over again.

The previous week at Atlanta, Jimmie Johnson used a similar strategy to steal a possible win from Kenseth. This time, Kenseth was hoping the tables would turn in his direction.

But two things worked against Kenseth: Too few cars tried a similar strategy, and there were too many laps remaining. Johnson chased down Kenseth and passed him with two laps to go to win for the third consecutive week, leaving Kenseth scratching his head at what it will take to cool off the hottest driver on the circuit.

One week ago, Johnson had only a handful of laps left when he opted for a two-tire strategy -- and had no fewer than six cars between himself and the first car with four fresh tires. That, coupled with Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crash on the green-white-checkered restart, guaranteed his win at Atlanta.

"I guess this is how dumb I am from the seat -- last week when we got four [tires], I thought for sure we should've gotten two because there was only three or four [laps] left, and this week I was like, 'Man, if we're going to pit, just put two tires on it or stay on the track -- one or the other,'" Kenseth said.

"Four never even crossed my mind. I just didn't think that many people would do it with 30 to go, but obviously I was way wrong. There was only three of us that tried it, and that was kind of the kiss of death for us. I think if there would've been five of us that tried it and it went green to the end like that, it would've took Jimmie long enough to navigate by them extra two or three cars and we probably would've gotten a big enough lead and it probably would've worked out."

Ryan Newman, Kenseth and Jamie McMurray all went for a two-tire strategy on their final pit stops, leaving Johnson behind Martin Truex Jr. as the first two cars with four tires. On the restart, Kenseth was able to pass Newman for the lead and build a significant margin -- but it wasn't enough to keep Johnson at bay for 34 laps.

However, Kenseth said there were two reasons why he was able to hold off Johnson for as long as his did.

"The first reason is I got a huge head start," Kenseth said. "The second reason was he was being pretty careful. Those are probably the two reasons.

"I was loose anyway, and if Jimmie got outside of me I was going to be looser, so I just tried to stay close to him and upset his aerodynamics as much as I could to try to hold him off. That's really the only reason I held him off as long as I did. If I probably gave him some breathing room, he probably would've gone right by. I just stayed in there as long as I could."

Kenseth also admitted that the balance of the car wasn't perfect following the final stop.

"I drove it real hard to get as big of a lead as I could, and I was a little too loose putting two tires on and kept losing more and more grip as I was running, and on four tires he just had more grip," Kenseth said.

With the way Kenseth's Chase has gone, three consecutive top-five finishes is a nice way to carry some momentum into 2008. However, he still would rather have been celebrating in Victory Lane.

"I'm happy and I'm disappointed," Kenseth said. "Whenever you're leading with three to go, you're always disappointed when you don't win. That's been a couple of races here in a row that's happened to us, got passed on the last lap.

"So I was disappointed in that, but overall, if I look back at the day, it was a great day for us. ... We probably had a top-three or four car, and took two tires at the end and this week they got four and beat us with it, last week they got two and beat us with it. So it's hard to figure out, but they made the right call and had the best car at the end and got through there."

For Kenseth, 2007 was a Texas two-step. He also finished second to Jeff Burton in the spring after giving up the lead late in the going.

"Jeff and I are great friends and we raced as hard as we could race for 10 or 15 laps and he finally passed me on the last lap, too," Kenseth said. "We couldn't have raced any harder for the lead without wrecking.

"It is disappointing. When you're leading with two or three to go and you get passed, it is disappointing. We've had three top-fives in a row now, and I'm happy about that. We seem to be getting back to where I want again, and I'm also firm believer that if you get yourself in position to win enough, you're going to win races."