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.

"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."