Matt Kenseth 2010 Preview, Predictions & Odds

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Matt Kenseth 2009 Stats

Matt Kenseth 2009 Recap & Review

After a winless 2008, last season couldn’t have started off any better for Matt Kenseth. He opened with a thrilling win in the Daytona 500, passing Elliott Sadler only one lap before rain shortened the race, and backed it up with a second straight triumph in Fontana. But in a telling sign of what was to come, the quest for three in a row ended quickly when his engine expired six laps in at Las Vegas. With only one more top 5 in the next eight races, Kenseth plummeted from leading the points to the Chase bubble in 12th.

That’s where he sat through the summer, but when the temperatures got hot, Kenseth’s on-track results failed to follow suit. In fact, a fourth-place finish at Dover at the end of May would be his last top 5 until the series revisited the track in September. In the 14 races in between, he led only 17 laps, scored only one top 10, and became publicly despondent over the team’s rocky performance.

Despite all of his struggles, Kenseth somehow hung onto 12th heading to Richmond in September, with a tenuous 20-point lead over Brian Vickers for the final spot in the Chase. But that’s where the No. 17 team finally paid the price; the car was never competitive, and a 25th-place finish officially locked him out of the playoffs for the first time since the Chase format debuted in 2004.

With the pressure off, the team did experience a small resurgence with experimental setups. Managing three top-5 finishes in the last 10 races, Kenseth was competitive but still fell short in the “Best of the Rest” category to Kyle Busch. That left him 14th in the final standings, his poorest showing since his rookie season in 2000.

Matt Kenseth 2010 Preview & Prediction

For a 10-year veteran, the 2009 season began and ended with plenty of firsts for Matt Kenseth. He had his first Daytona 500 win (the first for owner Jack Roush), then won the following weekend in Fontana, becoming the first driver since Jeff Gordon in 1997 to claim a victory in the first two races of the season. It was a great first chapter in what should have been a storybook ending, but that’s what makes his “final” first the most surprising of all.

For the first time in the history of the Chase, Kenseth wasn’t among the drivers vying for the championship. Instead, the team that once carried the banner for Roush Fenway Racing in its quest to dethrone its rivals at Hendrick Motorsports wasted the strong start, collapsing amidst a career-worst slump that left driver and new crew chief Drew Blickensderfer scratching their heads.

The lackluster performance and 14th-place finish in the standings might be easier to take if you could glance at the stat sheet and see one glaring problem, like repeat mechanical failures or bad luck getting caught up in wrecks. But other than two engine issues, that wasn’t the case with Kenseth. The team was simply off last season and will have to dig deep to find the solutions.

It’s hard to pin all the problems at the feet of Blickensderfer and the No. 17 team alone. RFR as a whole suffered with performance, scoring just three wins in 2009. Ford officials privately claim their chassis tools lag behind Hendrick, although it’s notable a next-generation mount made progress with Kenseth during the Chase. His Ford scored three top 5s during the playoffs with the experimental new chassis. If the new Ford engine, debuting full-time by late spring, is all it’s touted to be, that could provide some help — but it still appears to be an uphill battle to go up against the Chevy and Toyota teams each week.

As the search for answers continues, something that should benefit Kenseth right from the start is stability in the crew chief position, a luxury he hasn’t enjoyed in a while. Longtime crew chief Robbie Reiser left for a management position with RFR after the 2007 season, and Chip Bolen lasted just one year atop the pit box before “Blicks” moved over from the Nationwide Series to take the top job with the No. 17 in ’09. A look at the top performing teams in the series will illustrate that driver/crew chief chemistry is a must. Beyond the head wrench, expect several crew changes amidst a massive offseason overhaul of each of Roush’s four teams.

For the first time in his Cup career, Kenseth also has a new primary sponsor, with DeWalt leaving after a decade of sponsoring the No. 17. So what can we expect from him in his first season donning the purple colors of Crown Royal? Another run at the Chase seems a given based on Kenseth’s talent alone. But once he gets there, making a serious title push could be a tall order. Kenseth remains the King of Consistency, but 10th-to-15th-place runs each week won’t come close to making a run at the Jimmie Johnson juggernaut.

Matt Kenseth 2010 Predictions

We predict that Matt Kenseth will finish 8th in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Matt Kenseth Betting & Odds

Matt Kenseth NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship Odds: +2000

Matt Kenseth Betting Trends & Situations

• after finishing 6th to 10th, average finish is 12.9
• when racing in February, average finish is 10.2

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