Kenseth falls short again during Johnson's streak

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson have had dominant cars the past four weeks. But while Johnson has won four consecutive races, Kenseth has had to be satisfied with four top-five finishes, including a third-place effort in Sunday's Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

"That is frustrating, but we've had four really great races in a row," Kenseth said. "It's hard to run in the top 10 and it's really hard to run in the top five and if you can keep clicking off top-five finishes, that's really good.

"I said it last week and I'll say it again: Even though it didn't come true, but if you keep putting yourself in position to win, you're gonna win races. I just wish it would happen pretty soon."

How many wins would Kenseth have, if not for Johnson? It seems every time Kenseth has had a car capable of winning in recent weeks, Johnson's has been just that much better.

"They're just unbelievably good," Kenseth said of the No. 48 team. "They're as good as any group that I've seen and that includes Jeff [Gordon] in his heyday -- not that Jeff still isn't in it but you know what I mean -- when he would win 10 races a year and win a championship by 400 points.

"It's just like that. They're so good. I don't know how you can put yourself in position to win every week like that. It's just amazing."

It's not that Kenseth hasn't tried everything in his power to break the streak. At Atlanta, he went with a four-tire stop but a couple of caution flags at the end of race took away any advantage he might have had in an effort to chase down Johnson, who went with two.

At Texas, Kenseth opted for Johnson's strategy, going with two tires to grab track position. But he couldn't hold Johnson at bay with 34 laps to go -- getting passed for the win with two laps remaining.

And on Sunday, Kenseth led the most laps (93), including building an advantage of more than 10 seconds over the competition during a long green-flag run late in the race. However, a caution for debris negated that effort -- and after stopping for two tires, came out second behind Martin Truex Jr.

"We had a big lead there and there was so much debris out there we got that caution to get all of that cleaned up," Kenseth said. "I wish we could have run to the end, but yet even with that we still got lined back up and had a good pit stop and came out ahead of all the guys that got tires and I just couldn't get it done."

On the restart, Kenseth got bottled up behind the lapped car of Aric Almirola, and while he was dicing with the rookie, Johnson was able to close the gap. Once again -- just like Texas -- the two battled side-by-side with Johnson finally gaining the upper hand.

"I just didn't have enough grip on two tires and that one lapped car kind of got in my way and Jimmie snuck by there," Kenseth said. "Once he snuck by, it was over and I just couldn't catch him."

Starting 18th, Kenseth worked his way into the top 10 following pit stops under caution for debris. Out of sequence with the majority of the lead-lap cars, Kenseth and crew chief Robbie Reiser then gambled on Lap 187, stopping for four tires and fuel under green.

"It's kind of interesting when you're the guy out there on the oldest tires and people are blowing by you, and then when you come and get new tires, you catch them so fast and drive by them," Kenseth said. "If it works out for you, it's more fun because there are cars that are all kinds of different speeds.

"These cars run so close to the same speed that when you get them on different tires, then you do a lot of passing and people are passing you a lot, so that makes it interesting. You have to pay a lot of attention, but we really got lucky the way it worked out."

Kenseth went a lap down -- but his car was quicker than anyone else on the track. And by the time the rest of the leaders stopped, Kenseth was comfortably in front.

"Robbie told me to pit, but then when everybody else was on the racetrack and we were on pit road he kind of wanted us to do what the leader did, so it actually worked out," Kenseth said. "We got lucky and that's what got our track position and got us to lead all those laps and be up there, so we got fortunate.

"We had the track position. I thought all of the pit calls were right. We had great pit stops. We did everything right, we just got beat there at the end again."

The battle with Johnson used up what was left of Kenseth's tires -- and teammate Greg Biffle was able to chase down the No. 17 for second.

"We would have run side-by-side a lot longer and the way it looks, Greg would have probably caught us and passed us both because we would have probably used each other up pretty good," Kenseth said.