Deja vu for Kenseth who again is Ford's top dog (cont'd)

"But I still think it's a team thing. We just have got to keep working on our stuff. We have the same opportunities everybody else does, same rules to work with, we've just got to work on it hard and get it figured out."

Kenseth praised his Roush Fenway camp equally. After putting all five of its cars in the second Chase for the Nextel Cup in 2005, Roush placed only Kenseth and Mark Martin in the 2006 Chase.

"I think this year we have the potential to finish stronger than what we had last year," Kenseth said.

Heading into Sunday, Carl Edwards is ninth in the standings, Jamie McMurray is 12th, Raybestos Rookie of the Year candidate David Ragan is 19th and Greg Biffle is 22nd.

Kenseth said disarray in the Roush camp last season was the biggest reason the group faltered.

"When Jamie and Jimmy [Fennig, crew chief] didn't start off well together and they took Jimmy out of there and moved him to the Busch shop that really hurt the organization a lot.

"They took Wally Brown, our engineer, and moved him to Carl's crew chief, and took Carl's crew chief away from him and gave him Jamie's. It just mixed everything up, and it really hurt the engineering department.

"Having Jimmy away from the shop really hurt. And this year they've been able to get Chris Andrews to come in to head up the engineering department, get Jimmy back in there with David, and got Larry Carter with Jamie, which they've been working really great together.

"They mixed things up but we brought people in. We didn't rob Peter to pay Paul, and take somebody out of a department and make it weaker. And I think that's what happened to us last year. We just took the people we had and moved them out of there and put them in different positions and weren't able to finish strong."

With what he perceives as the pieces in the right place, Kenseth thinks that's what will differentiate the last year demise to a stronger finish in 2007.

"I think this year we've got a lot better potential to keep developing, keep getting stronger as the year goes on, where last year we started off really strong and just kind of had a steady decline, in my opinion, and by the end of the year didn't have what we needed to win with.

"So I'm hoping it'll be the opposite this year, although we started fairly strong, but I'm hoping and I think that our performance should improve as we go on, should get caught up on some stuff, get caught up on the Car of Tomorrow and keep making it better, and get caught up on our current car and keep making it better for the end of the year.

"I have a hope that we're fairly strong now but I have a hope that we'll be stronger at the end of the year."

Taking the same tack, Kenseth methodically attacked his preparation for Sunday, moving from 40th in Friday's fragmented single practice to 10th in Saturday morning's 50-minute session. He was 32nd in Happy Hour.

"To race well at Texas you just have to have a good-handling car," Kenseth said. "It flattens out off the corner -- the transitions are real flat in and out of the corner -- and to keep your car turning good enough without being too loose like anywhere else, is kind of the key.

"Lately the track has widened out. You've been able to run the top or the bottom, and I also think it's important to have a car that'll work in both grooves [so] if you get tight behind somebody, if you can move up the track and get around the top just as fast as you're getting around the bottom, that's going to be a big help."