Deja vu for Kenseth who again is Ford's top dog

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Matt Kenseth might be the sole Ford driver among seven Chevrolet pilots at the top of the Nextel Cup point chart, but he's secure in saying his Roush Fenway Racing team's and Ford's future is positive.

Kenseth's No. 17 Ford is fourth in the standings heading into Sunday's Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, where he won in 2002. Thanks to team owner John Henry's equal position in the owner points, Kenseth will start the race on the outside of the second row, behind Chevy drivers Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton and Jimmie Johnson.

And with a victory at the two-mile California Speedway, three top-five finishes and only one result in six outside the top 11 -- a lead lap 27th in the Daytona 500 -- Kenseth is plenty comfortable with his season to date.

"The best things?" Kenseth asked. "A couple of things: Our pit stops have been great; they've been more consistent this year than they were last year. We changed that group around a little bit and they've even gotten stronger [so] one of our stronger suits has been pit road this year.

"I feel good about being able to win a race. I feel good about finishing better than what we've been running. We haven't really run as good as our finishes look like -- and finishing better than you run is important to gather points.

"The other thing I don't feel good about is we haven't run as good the last three or four or five weeks as we need to, to be a serious contender. We haven't really been like them top few guys. We've got some work to do to get our stuff running better, but we have been finishing good."

Kenseth actually downplayed the perception that he's the lead Ford pilot, even though he finished as runner-up to 2006 champion Johnson and leads the blue oval group again this season.

"I haven't really thought about it like that," Kenseth said. "I guess if you look at last year, you look at the points, whatever, we had the best-running Ford, but I don't really look at the manufacturer thing as much -- I look more at the race team thing and look at how we've got our stuff running compared to theirs.

"I think you could give [2006 champion crew chief] Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson any make of car and they'd figure out how to win with it [so] I don't think it's really necessarily a manufacturer thing where they have a big advantage. Certainly, if you look at the numbers, there's more Chevrolet teams [and] if there's more cars in the field, their numbers are going to be better, they're going to have more good finishes, obviously, because there is more of them. (Continued)