Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Matt Kenseth Says Kansas Racing Will be Similar to Las Vegas

Matt Kenseth/No. 20 Home Depot Husky Toyota Preview
STP 400 at Kansas Speedway
No. 20 Husky Toyota News and Notes:

JOE GIBBS RACING AT KANSAS: Joe Gibbs Racing has 38 Sprint Cup Series starts at Kansas Speedway earning a pair of wins, six top-five, and nine top-ten finishes. The organization also has led for a total of 109 laps and has an average start of 15.2 and an average finish of 18.2 at the 1.5-mile intermediate track.

HEY BATTER BATTER: The race is on as drivers from NASCAR (including Matt Kenseth) and NHRA will take the field in a charity softball game at CMC-Northeast Stadium, home of the Kannapolis Intimidators on Wednesday, April 17th. An hour-long pre-game autograph session begins at 5:00 p.m. with the first pitch at 7:00 p.m.

NEW LOOK ONLINE: Matt Kenseth’s 2013 season has been one full of exciting change – new team, new manufacturer, new sponsors and new crew chief. Earlier this month, the 2003 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion also received a new website with the launch of the freshly designed MattKenseth.com by RACERSITES.

KENSETH BY THE NUMBERS: Following Kansas Speedway’s 2012 track surface repave, Kenseth is the firstSprint Cup Series driver who has earned a win at the 1.5-mile freshly repaved track with his October 2012 victory. In 14 Sprint Cup Series starts at Kansas, Kenseth has completed 3,472 of 3,686 laps (94.2 percent) and has led for a total of 316 laps. Kenseth has earned one win, five top-five, and eight top-ten finishes at Kansas including one pole award.

HERE’S YOUR SIGNATURE: On Friday, April 19th, Kenseth will participate in the NASCAR autograph session at Kansas Speedway slated to begin at 5:30pm CT. Fans can win wristbands by visiting The SprintExperience on Friday where Miss Sprint Cup and her team will be giving them away as game prizes throughout the day.

RACE INFO: The STP 400 at Kansas Speedway (1.5-mile) begins at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 21st. Therace will be broadcast live on FOX, Sirius XM Channel 90 and MRN Radio.

TEAM QUOTES:

Matt Kenseth: “Heading into Kansas, I’ve felt confident every week because Jason (Ratcliff) and the guys have built me some really fast cars already this season and I think we’ve been competitive every week. I really like racing at Kansas and I thought we ran well all weekend there with the new pavement last October with our win. I think that the racing this weekend will be similar to Vegas because the groove at Kansas will widen out a bit after the surface has been able to age over the winter and hopefully that will move the groove around so that we have a little more room to pass.”

Jason Ratcliff: “Matt (Kenseth) is the only Sprint Cup driver to have won on the new track configuration at Kansas so I’m really looking forward to this weekend. Who else would you like to have in your car than the guy who visited Victory Lane already? The No. 20 team had what I thought was going to be a really good race at Kansas last year because we were really fast during the test on the new pavement. We just didn’t run as well during the race as I was hoping we would, so I feel like we have some work to do going into this weekend. Knowing that Matt won there in the fall, I hope that he can help us with where we may have missed the boat in last year’s race.”

- Joe Gibbs Racing

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