Matt Kenseth 'as confident going into Chicago as he's been anywhere else'

Kenseth has wins on 1.5-mile tracks at Las Vegas. Kansas & Kentucky

Matt Kenseth/No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Preview
GEICO 400 at Chicagoland Speedway

No. 20 Dollar General Toyota News and Notes:

KENSETH BY THE NUMBERS: In 12 Sprint Cup Series career starts at Chicagoland Speedway, Matt Kenseth has an average finish of 12.8 and has completed 3,203 of 3,207 (99.9 percent) career laps. Kenseth has earned two top-five and four top-10 finishes achieving his best finish of third in 2012 at the 1.5-mile track.

JOE GIBBS RACING AT CHICAGO: Joe Gibbs Racing has 33 Sprint Cup Series starts at Chicagoland Speedway earning 3 wins, 9 top-five, and 12 top-ten finishes. The organization has led for a total of 571 laps, has an average start of 15.9, an average finish of 17.3, and has completed 8,549 of 8,820 (96.9 percent) laps at Chicago.

GOLFING “FORE” THE DG LITERACY FOUNDATION: On Monday, September 9th, Kenseth participated in the 21st Annual Dollar General Literacy Foundation Golf Classic in Nashville, Tennessee. Since its inception in 1993, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation Golf Classic has raised over $14.6 million in support of literacy initiatives throughout Dollar General’s operating market.

THIS WEEK ON THE NO. 20 DOLLAR GENERAL TOYOTA: Dollar General vendor partners Coca-Cola, Arm & Hammer, Glad, Hanes, Bounty, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, First Quality and Band-Aid will be featured on Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 Toyota Camry this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway.

RACE INFO: The GEICO 400 at Chicagoland Speedway (0.533-mile) begins at 2:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 15th. The race will be broadcast live on ESPN, Sirius XM Channel 90 and MRN Radio.

From the Cockpit:
Matt Kenseth: “I always enjoy going to Chicago because it’s the closest we get to Wisconsin so I always enjoy getting that close to home with all the great fans in that area. Everyone always groups mile-and-a-half tracks together, but a lot of them couldn’t really be any more different. Chicago is kind of similar to Atlanta although that didn’t go so great for us, but I felt good about our Chicago test we did a few weeks ago. I felt like we learned a lot there and I thought it was a good test. I felt like we answered some questions, raised some more questions, but overall answered more. I’m as confident going into Chicago this weekend as anywhere else. Each point in every race is equally important and you don’t want to have any bad races throughout the Chase. Certainly, you don’t want to have a bad first one, but you don’t want to have any bad ones. You want to start strong and finish strong.”

From the Pit Box:
Jason Ratcliff: “We tested at Chicago a few weeks ago, and I thought that things went well for us. I thought we were pretty good once the track rubbered up and my only concern was that the temperatures were hotter than what we’ll see this weekend. Our mile-and-a-half stuff has been really good so far this year so I’m excited about starting the Chase at that style of race track because it’s a style that Matt (Kenseth) and the No. 20 team have excelled at so far this year. I’m looking forward to getting the first race of the Chase kicked off on a good note, getting a good run under our belts, and building some momentum early on.”

- Joe Gibbs Racing