After the final lap was run at Homestead Miami Speedway, the final standings saw Roush Fenway Racing driver, Matt Kenseth finish fifth.
That is pretty impressive by Kenseth and his team who went winless for the second time in three years.
Coming into Daytona International Speedway, Kenseth and his team didn’t have that confidence. Kenseth knew a change would need to be done. Kenseth and Jack Roush talked about lack of spark for the team and a change was made.
“It doesn't make any sense. It's not really good for anybody. It's just kind of the way it went down," Kenseth said. "I thought it was just something that needed to be done. We're just one race in, we've got a lot of racing to go this year, and we wanted to get Todd in there with the guys and get him acclimated and get a head start on this thing instead of waiting halfway into the season, and it's too late to dig ourselves out.”
In the first five races their worst finish was eighth and that was at DIS. Still in the 10 races that followed Kenseth logged just three top 10 finishes.
They were lacking speed and the team continued to struggle during the races. He wasn’t running like he and his team expected and coming into Pocono in June, RFR as whole were all scratching their heads. "You're just noticing that?" Kenseth said. "We haven't won a race in a year-and-a-half [and] I've probably said we weren't fast enough, about everywhere.”
As the season wore on though RFR found victory lane but not with Kenseth. He made the Chase but for the second year in a row.
While his teammates found success Kenseth was just mediocre and in the Chase that would not be good enough to with the title.
"You have to beat all those good guys up in the top five or six every week. I think you have to be consistently top-five or under and on your worst days finish in the top 10 and on your best days contend for some wins. That's about it. You never know exactly what it's going to take until they get into it."
Two finishes outside the top 20 in the first two races of the Chase saw him 11th in the standings. In the next five races he scored two top 10’s but three finishes worse than 15th.
That wouldn’t be good enough with the top three in points finishing top 10 every week.
As the Chase wore on Kenseth and his team finally found the consistency they were searching for.
In the final three races of the season a second, seventh and a ninth moved him from 11th to fifth in the standings.
Finally, for Kenseth the team has hit on something as the Chase wore on. While they might not have been battlin for a title; their final races of the season gave this team a lot of confidence.
In 2010, Kenseth led 108 laps, had an average start of 19.8 and a average finish of 12.8. He ranks fourth in laps run on lead lap with 7074.
In the Chase, he led laps in all but three of the races. Kenseth went winless but had six top fives and 15 top 10’s.
Heading into 2011, Kenseth hopes build on solid finish to 2010.
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