Another quiet step forward for Cup's stealth candidate (cont'd)

Sunday, Kenseth's car was good, but not quite good enough to win. It couldn't keep up with Johnson in the first half of the race, and couldn't mount a serious challenge to Stewart in the second. A late fuel-only stop gave them track position, and Kenseth took over from there. But he'd like to win more, echoing a mantra heard regularly in 2003, especially now that victories are worth 10 Chase bonus points each.

Lap-by-Lap

Tony Stewart got by Matt Kenseth for good on Lap 233 and went on to win the USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland.

• Lap-by-Lap, click here
• Race Video, click here

"It's a different day with the way the points system works and everything," he said. "It's great to finish second and say, hey, you got a lot of points and stuff, but it would have been nice to have had that win and that extra 10 going into the Chase. We're comfortably in the top 12, so we really need to be winning races. We work as hard as we can to try to win, but you can only go as fast as you can get your racecar to go."

Making it go faster is Reiser's job. "The biggest challenge we have ahead of us right now is to make cars that are faster and more competitive so Matt can win some of these races," he said. "We've made a big leap with what we're doing right now, but we were still a little bit off the 20 and the 48 [Sunday], so we've got a little work to do."

Winning Sunday would have meant a lot even to a team that's been to Victory Lane 15 times already. Kenseth is a son of Wisconsin, the stock-car capital of the Midwest, and a short drive up the Tri-State Expressway from metro Chicago. Scanning the infield, it was easy to spot plenty of RVs flying 17 flags and fans wearing black and gold shirts. There hasn't been a more popular driver in Joliet since Elwood arrived in his beat-up old cop car to pick up Joltin' Jake at the Illinois state prison.

"You always have a little extra confidence, I think, when you're kind of at your home track. I don't really have a home track, but this certainly is the closest to where I grew up, two or three hours away," Kenseth said. "I always have a lot of fans here, a lot of friends and family and a lot of people we know. So it always feels good. It feels like I have more support here than at any other track, so that always gives you a little more adrenaline and makes you want to win even worse. You always race as hard as you can to win, but it hurts a little more when you don't and you're in front of more of a home crowd."

Kenseth apologized to his crew over the radio after the race. "I'm really sorry I couldn't pull this thing out. I did all I could," he said. But there was no need for contrition. Sunday was another quiet building-block in another quiet but overlooked season, the kind that might not get noticed until Kenseth is left clutching the trophy at the end.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.