Kenseth wants a repeat of Daytona, not all of 2009

The back slapping in Victory Lane after last year's Daytona 500 nearly drown out the fireworks. It certainly lasted longer and as well it should: Owner Jack Roush was posing with the Harley J. Earl Trophy for the first time.

Matt Kenseth did the trick for Roush -- who had been eyeing but not clutching the 500 trophy since 1988. And he did it in a way that made it seem as though the stars were lining up nicely for the team -- Kenseth passed Elliott Sadler seven laps before the race was red-flagged for good by a cloudburst.

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A week later, Kenseth would win again, and the Daytona-birthed momentum made it appear 2009 was going to be a biggie for Roush Fenway Racing and the No. 17 team.

But three weeks ago, Roush sat in front of the media in Charlotte and launched into a lengthy monologue not about how big last season was, but how small it wound up being -- Kenseth didn't win again and missed the Chase for the Sprint Cup for the first time ... and Roush won only one more race.

That monologue ended with a semi-promise: Roush Fenway will not suffer a similar fate in 2010.

"We will win more races given the same amount of opportunities next year that we won last year, but in the meantime," Roush said, "we're going to try to get ourselves ready ... to go take a bunch of them hands-down."

Kenseth took the microphone shortly after Roush that day and continued on with the same theme.

"I think we've got a lot of exciting things going," said Kenseth, the 2003 Cup champion. "I think we've made a lot of upgrades on our cars from last year, but the bottom line is we've got to do it on the racetrack. We've got to have better results than we had last year. We've got to get back into championship form, so that's my goal -- to get our team back in form to contend for a championship." (Continued)