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Kenseth's Bid Ends Before It Starts

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 2, 2009

LAS VEGAS - Matt Kenseth knew his bid to make NASCAR history was over before the race even started Sunday.

Kenseth, seeking to become the first driver to win the first three races of the season, sensed a problem in his engine during the warm-up laps at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. A caution on the second lap gave him a chance to head to pit road, where his crew quickly tried to fix the problem.

But once back on the track, he knew the motor was about to fail.

"You guys can start packing it up, I'm going to be there in two laps," he radioed his Roush Fenway Racing team.

Sure enough, the motor failed by Lap 6 and Kenseth was out of the race.

"How you can blow up in warm-ups?" he questioned crew chief Drew Blickensderfer over the radio. "Anyway, great job the last two weeks. Pretty disappointing."

REUTIMANN'S STRONG START: Zephyrhills' David Reutimann continued his strong start to the season with a fourth-place finish at Las Vegas.

It was the first top-five finish in Reutimann's career, and moved him seven spots in the standings to fifth.

"You run around here for a couple of years and trying to get close to winning one of these things, and so we're a little closer than what we were," Reutimann said. "It's been great. I love my team."

Reutimann was one of five Toyota drivers who had to change his motor Friday, forcing him to forfeit his fourth-place starting position for a spot at the back of the field.

ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER MOTOR: Engine woes were a prominent problem at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, starting Friday when five Toyota teams had to change motors for various reasons.

The problems stretched into the race, though, when Roush Fenway Racing drivers Matt Kenseth and David Ragan both lost their motors. Before leaving the track after his own early failure, Kenseth predicted more engines would break before the race was over.

Sure enough, Ragan's went about 70 laps later.

"In four years at Roush Fenway, this is the first time I've had an engine failure," Ragan said. "On the restart, it just started skipping and popping and we switched ignition boxes because I felt like it might just be something small, but it kept getting worse and worse."

BOUNCING BACK: A week after Richard Childress Racing struggled at California, the team bounced back to put two of its drivers in the top three.

Clint Bowyer finished second, Jeff Burton was third and Kevin Harvick was 12th as three of the four drivers combined to lead 79 laps.

A week ago, Bowyer was 19th, Casey Mears 24th, Burton 32nd and Harvick 38th.

The Associated Press

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