Kenseth’s team owner tips cap to Johnson
Matt Kenseth will be poised to seize the NASCAR Nextel Cup if points leader Jimmie Johnson runs into trouble at the final race Sunday, but otherwise Johnson has earned the title, Kenseth’s team owner said Tuesday.
With a 63-point lead over Kenseth in the Chase for the Cup, Johnson “certainly deserves to be the champion and the only way he won’t be is if he has some mechanical problem or gets involved in a wreck where he can’t finish the race,” said Jack Roush, whose Roush Racing fields Kenseth’s Ford Fusion.
“I’m not wishing that on Jimmie,” Roush said. “Given the fact that he’s finished first or second in the last half-dozen races, he’s certainly the odds-on favorite to win and I hope that he can.”
Only Johnson, who drives the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, rookie Denny Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. still have mathematical chances to win the Cup at Sunday’s Ford 400 stock car race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.
But it is Johnson’s title to lose. He needs only to finish 12th or better on Homestead’s 1.5-mile oval to win the championship, even if he doesn’t earn bonus points for leading a lap or leading the most laps.
That’s a tough challenge for Kenseth and Roush.
“We do have a chance. We’ll see what happens,” said Roush, who joined team officials for the four other drivers on a news conference call.
Johnson, 31, overcame problems early in the 10-race Chase with his recent string of impressive finishes to take the points lead. Since mid-October, he has had four seconds and a victory.
He was second, behind winner Harvick, Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, where he stretched his lead from 17 points. Harvick and Hamlin are 90 points behind Johnson. Earnhardt trails by 115 points.
“We just don’t need to have any bad luck this Sunday,” said Johnson’s car owner, Rick Hendrick, who previously won championships with Jeff Gordon and Terry Labonte. “I feel extremely good about our competitiveness on the team.
“I just hope Johnson can close the deal,” he added, noting that Johnson came close to winning titles the last four years. “I’ve known Jimmie since he was probably 17 years old. He’s going to make a great champion.”
Kenseth, the 2003 Cup winner, has stayed in this year’s hunt by avoiding bad finishes during the Chase, but he has seldom been in the top five, because of recurring handling problems with his No. 17 car.
“Matt Kenseth is as mature as any driver I’ve ever worked with,” Roush said. “He’s not going to beat himself. We’ve just missed something on the car. It’s something that we’ll find an answer to eventually.”
This is the third year of the Chase, a playoff-style format in which the top 10 drivers in points after 26 of the series’ 36 races compete for the title. The others in this year’s Chase – Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin, Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch – were eliminated at Phoenix.