FONTANA, Calif. -- Last November, after Matt Kenseth had missed the Chase for the first time in his career on NASCAR's premier series, car owner Jack Roush asked his driver if he was comfortable with the direction of his No. 17 team. Kenseth said yes, adding that he felt like crew chief Drew Blickensderfer needed a full season and a full offseason to turn the program around.

And then he got to Daytona, and realized he was wrong.

“

I hope I can continue on and get the No. 17 car back where it belongs, in Victory Lane.

”

-- TODD PARROTT

"You guys [in the media] say I don't show emotions sometimes? I kind of felt like the whole group was like that," Kenseth said Friday at Auto Club Speedway. "I just feel like we needed something to throw a spark in the thing, to get the guys back remembering what this is all about, how lucky we are to do this, racing at the top level. It takes a lot of work and enthusiasm and attitude and all those things to be successful, and I wasn't feeling that vibe."

That something turned out to be a rare post-Daytona 500 crew chief change, with Roush Fenway Racing effectively swapping Blickensderfer with Todd Parrott, the former championship crew chief who was overseeing the superspeedway program in Roush's research and development effort. The move was startling, in more ways than one -- it came on the heels of an eighth-place finish at Daytona, and one race into the season rather than during the winter. But Kenseth said he'd rather make the move now rather than regret any inaction later.

"It doesn't make any sense. It's not really good for anybody. It's just kind of the way it went down," Kenseth said. "I thought it was just something that needed to be done. We're just one race in, we've got a lot of racing to go this year, and we wanted to get Todd in there with the guys and get him acclimated and get a head start on this thing instead of waiting halfway into the season, and it's too late to dig ourselves out."

Blickensderfer has now experienced the extremes of the business in a span of just over 12 months. A year ago he was Kenseth's personal choice to succeed Chip Bolin atop the No. 17 pit box, and the driver's faith was rewarded with consecutive victories in the Daytona 500 and at Auto Club Speedway. Even after a run of mediocre efforts late last summer kept Kenseth out of the Chase for the first time, there was no public indication that Blickensderfer would be replaced.

There seemed to be no indication inside Roush Fenway, either, until Kenseth went to Daytona and picked up on a vibe he was uncomfortable with.

"You didn't feel like everybody came into the truck fired up to go win races. This probably wasn't the case, but you almost felt like they came in and they were just kind of going through the motions," he said. "We needed to get some spark into the group and get everybody back to what this is about. I'm a big football fan, so watching Drew Brees fire up all his guys before the game, and seeing Ray Lewis and this guys firing up the defense, and you see those guys ready to go out and do the best they can ... I'm not a very good leader, I'll admit that. I'm not a good leader, I'm not the guy to do that. I just felt like something needed to be changed, and that usually starts with the driver or the crew chief." (Continued)