Kenseth's pit road mistake costs him All-Star victory (cont'd)

Despite having arguably the best car on the track, tires and track conditions were against him in the final segment.

"It's the same tire we had last spring and we couldn't really race then and I don't think it's gonna be better now," Kenseth snapped. "It's just tough. When we were in front we could drive away or hang in there with those guys. The 24 [Jeff Gordon] was a little better on long runs and so was the 5 [Kyle Busch], but we could really run with them.

"When we got behind, even in second or third place, you just couldn't do anything -- you'd just get so tight and you couldn't really get anything to work for some reason. So it was just real important to be in front."

Crew chief Robbie Reiser shared his driver's frustration.

"Our job is to win races," he said. "Any time you've got yourself in position and it doesn't work out for you, you don't leave happy. That's just the way it is."

Reiser said the performance was solid despite the disappointment that went with it.

"I mean, we had ourselves in position to win the race," Reiser said. "And we got caught speeding on pit road, and that cost us big and we just couldn't come back from that. We had a pretty good car. We can't really complain about that. I think Matt's real happy with what we had here, so we'll go from there."

Ironically, following Friday night's qualifying session in which Kenseth won the pole (watch video), runner-up Kurt Busch said he wanted to be the driver closest to Kenseth when the teams came down pit road.

"He [Kenseth] seems to be the fastest thing on pit road legally every week and he proved it again tonight with the time that he posted," Busch joked after qualifying was over. "So we might try to invert ourselves to be right behind the 17 car when the break happens so we can find him, find his speed down pit road and pit and know exactly what he does, whether he does two tires or whether he does a stop and go."

In the end, what had been a positive became a big negative, as the desire to be first off pit road was what cost him a chance to be first at the finish.

"I was overly-aggressive to try and stay in front," Kenseth said. "That kind of cost us."