Matt Kenseth’s upset victory was a matter of numbers, not just choosing a two-tire pit stop instead of four in the last moments of the Dover NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
On the last caution, at lap 363, Clint Bowyer was leading while Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards who had dominated the racing at the one mile concrete paved Dover oval.
The problem was, while three top cars made longer stops for four tires, many more drivers took two tires moving the contenders further back when they came out of the pits.
As Johnson, who ended up ninth, explained “I knew we were outnumbered when so many came out on two tires.”
Still Kenseth credits his crew chief Jimmy Fennig for the two-tire call. “I knew we wouldn’t win if we took four. Jimmy wanted four but as I was driving down pit road I thought maybe we could compromise. While I was on the jack I asked if he was sure we didn’t want to try two and he said to put on two. It was really Jimmy’s call and just a suggestion by me,” said Kenseth after his second Sprint Cup win of the year and 20th in his career.
But Fennig said it was his driver’s call “That was all Matt there. He figured we needed to have clean air and he called two tires and we did two and away we went.”
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| Clint Bowyer, Marcos Ambrose and Martin Truex Jr. (Photo: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images for NASCAR) |
On the last caution, at lap 363, Clint Bowyer was leading while Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards who had dominated the racing at the one mile concrete paved Dover oval.
The problem was, while three top cars made longer stops for four tires, many more drivers took two tires moving the contenders further back when they came out of the pits.
As Johnson, who ended up ninth, explained “I knew we were outnumbered when so many came out on two tires.”
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| Matt Kenseth races Roush Fenway Racing teammate David Ragan. (Photo: Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR) |
Still Kenseth credits his crew chief Jimmy Fennig for the two-tire call. “I knew we wouldn’t win if we took four. Jimmy wanted four but as I was driving down pit road I thought maybe we could compromise. While I was on the jack I asked if he was sure we didn’t want to try two and he said to put on two. It was really Jimmy’s call and just a suggestion by me,” said Kenseth after his second Sprint Cup win of the year and 20th in his career.
But Fennig said it was his driver’s call “That was all Matt there. He figured we needed to have clean air and he called two tires and we did two and away we went.”