RELATED: Full weekend schedule | Updated Playoffs standings
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Matt Kenseth isn’t sure yet if he’ll have a good chance of advancing in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, but he knows he must avoid a ‘bad’ day on Sunday.
His body of work at the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway points to a positive potential.
Kenseth hasn’t finished worse than 14th at the track since October of 2009 — a streak that includes 10 top-10 finishes in the last 14 races here and back-to-back wins in 2012-13 in a Jack Roush Ford and a Joe Gibbs Toyota, respectively.
Sitting in 10th place in the Playoffs standings heading into Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Kenseth needs a win to automatically advance or get some help from his fellow competitors ahead of him. He enters Sunday’s race eight points below the cutoff line, where Jimmie Johnson sits in eighth place and just one point behind Kyle Busch in ninth. To earn a position in the next round of the playoffs on points, he’ll need to be aggressive by earning valuable stage points and hope the former champions aren’t so fortunate.
Only 30 points separate places three (Kyle Larson) through 10, and stage wins will be at a premium.
“Last time we were here we ran bad from the second we unloaded until we were done with the weekend,” Kenseth said. “I’m optimistic we’ll unload a decent speed today, it will drive decent, we’ll get it driving good tomorrow, I hope. Charlotte (two weeks ago) was a struggle. Never got to drive good the whole weekend. Didn’t run very well. Talladega is Talladega. Hopefully we can go this weekend and perform well.”
The last time Kenseth was at Kansas — and he describes it as a “bad” day — he finished 12th. He led 273 laps in the previous four races and sat on the pole for the spring race in 2016.
So the 2003 Cup champion actually comes to the track as a legitimate favorite to hoist a trophy. He has finishes of 11th or better in four of the five 2017 playoff races, including mile-and-a-half tracks like Kansas, Chicago and Charlotte.
Kenseth’s body language and remarks in a press conference Friday might indicate he truly doesn’t know what to expect during this vital playoff weekend – race favorite or not. But his performance here gives gives him every reason to be optimistic.
“I think after they paved it, we had a couple years there where we just had really fast cars, then kind of things went right in the race, we were able to capitalize on that,” Kenseth surmised of his results at Kansas.
“You’re only as good as your last race. Our last one here we ran really, really bad. Looking forward to getting on the track today and hopefully redeeming ourselves this weekend.
“Obviously winning has been important to us. We haven’t been able to do that in about a year and a half. With all that being said, if we can’t run good here, we’re probably not going to run good anywhere the rest of the year. …
“This always has been one of my better race tracks from a driver standpoint. It’s a pretty basic race track, mile and a half, still not very bumpy. There’s multiple banking. But your intermediate stuff, if it’s ever going to run good, it should run good here. So hopefully we can make it run good.”