Another quiet step forward for Cup's stealth candidate

JOLIET, Ill. -- The spotlight found all the usual subjects Sunday afternoon at Chicagoland Speedway. Jimmie Johnson thankfully walked away from a strong but smashed-up automobile doomed by a blown tire. Dale Earnhardt Jr. hooted and hollered over team radio as he battled a busted power-steering system. Tony Stewart hauled his always-controversial self up the catchfence after ending a 20-race winless streak.

And Matt Kenseth took off his hard hat, put down his lunch pail, and clocked out after another unspectacular but ultimately successful day at the factory. He led one lap, that only by a fender. His one chance to get clear of Stewart and grab clean air was denied by a crafty block. Yet his runner-up finish translated into his 13th top-10 in 19 starts this season, and another quiet step forward for the stealth candidate for the Nextel Cup title.

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He's been there all year, surrounded by teams and drivers who win more races and attract more attention, virtually ignored despite his lofty standing in the points. He's clean-cut and well-mannered, quiet off the track and courteous on it. Other drivers make the headlines, for reasons good or bad. All Kenseth and his No. 17 team do is come to the racetrack every week and quietly post another solid finish, in a season that's beginning to parallel his championship campaign of 2003.

The flagship driver at Roush Fenway Racing is light on style and heavy on substance, a meat-and-potatoes competitor who's found a way to maintain a relatively low profile even in an image-conscious and exposure-obsessed sport. In everywhere but the standings, where he ranks third in points and has more top-10 finishes than any other driver but championship leader Jeff Gordon, he's NASCAR's invisible man.

"I think that's Matt," crew chief Robbie Reiser said on pit road after the USG Sheetrock 400. "That's our whole race team. We come here to race. We don't come here for the show. We come here to do our jobs and try to win races, and that's probably why you see it that way."

When Kenseth won the series championship four years ago, he won only once, that in the third event of the season at Las Vegas. From that point on he simply overwhelmed his rivals with numbing consistency, posting top-10s in 25 of 36 events and building a points advantage so large he clinched the title in the next-to-last race of the season. It was widely believed to be the impetus for the Chase format, which created a 10-race playoff attempting to inject more drama into the sport.

This year, Gordon looms at the top of the points list. The Chase format will reset the standings in seven event weekends, negating most of whatever advantage the top 12 drivers have built. Kenseth has won only once, this time at California in the second race of the year. But he and his unflappable crew continue to rip off one top-10 after another, following the same, time-tested formula that led them to the top of the sport.

"I do feel like our consistency is pretty good," he said. "I feel like it's always really good. We've had a really good group of guys, Robbie has been with me the whole time, [chief engineer] Chip [Bolen], there are a lot of key guys in our shop that make it happen. To be consistent, your car's got to be running at the end of the day and your setup's got to be right. We've got a lot of great people that put it all together so we don't fall apart. It takes everything, and I've got a really good group to make that happen."

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
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"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.