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MORE: Watch Kenseth, Newman make contact
Matt Kenseth‘s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship hopes took a heavy dose of damage Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Kenseth took his car to the garage on Lap 241 of 334 after his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota made major right-side contact with the Turn 4 wall. It was the final crushing blow in a series of misfortune for the Coors Light Pole Award winner, who led 73 laps in the early going.
Kenseth had a pair of slow pit stops early — one when his jack man slipped, the other when he overshot his pit-stall lane — that pushed him back in the pack. Contact with Ryan Newman on Lap 176 caused significant damage to his car’s right side.
“Everything kind of snowballed,” Kenseth told NBCSN about his trouble-filled day. “With Ryan (Newman), I honestly don’t know. I’ve got to go look at it. He went up like I thought he was broke, so I went up through the middle and I thought I left him plenty of room and then next thing I know I was pointed at the fence, you know? I don’t know. I’ve got to rewatch it.”
Kenseth scraped the wall again on Lap 204, then was running three laps down in 32nd place when he clouted the wall a final time. He was credited with a 42nd-place finish.
Kenseth, a five-time winner this season, had punched his ticket into the Chase’s Contender Round with a victory two weeks ago at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He’ll likely need similar magic in the round’s next two races — at Kansas and Talladega.