Matt Kenseth fought a hard battle Saturday night and came out battered but not beaten. The Team Lycos Chevrolet was spun out by Kerry Earnhardt and put a lap down, Matt almost got his lap back a few times to Dale Jr. who was doing a good job of stealing the show again, until NASCAR put an end to his punting of drivers into the wall. Jr. got the black flag after sending Joe Bessy, the last car on the lead lap, into the wall. Matt finished the race in 12th, after a 24th place qualifying position.

Matt is only 13 points out of the series lead, not too bad considering the hard luck he has had the last few races.

Lycos will be sponsoring the race this weekend at South Boston Speedway. The Lycos.com 300 gets the green flag this Saturday night at 6:30 pm eastern, qualifying is just 3 hours earlier. The race will be televised live on TNN.

Matt led 7 laps here last year until he was spun out, he went on to finish in 6th. Can Team Lycos repeat their performance like the Pikes Peak event????

Team Lycos gets another top five yesterday, placing 3rd in the Kenwood 300. Matt Kenseth started in the 3rd position and ran in second a few times before Kevin Lepage took over the position for good. The #3 car was the class of the field, leading all but 9 laps and taking over the points lead. Matt is now 6 points behind Earnhardt Jr. Mike McLaughlin is 82 points off the lead after having problems late in the race when his hood came loose, forcing him to take a green flag stop.

MATT KENSETH No. 17 Lycos Chevrolet: “We’d love to win every week, and that’s what we do this for is to win. We had a decent car and a good solid run. The points thing looks better. We’ll just have to try a little bit more next week. Dale pretty much dominated the show again. But our crew did a good job. Good pit stops, good adjustments. We had the car handling pretty good there at the end but they were still driving away from us. We just have to do a little work. The heat wasn’t bad at all. It wasn’t very hot. It was a little warm out. The car was just a little on the tight side all day. I got beat real bad by Dale Jr., and pretty bad by Kevin, so we had a decent day. Last year, we finished third here and I was real happy with that. Only difference was that we run third and had a car fast enough to win the race, but fell back because of the fuel mileage thing. Today we had a third place car and finished third. We just need to be a little faster. Dale’s beating us by a lot. But for the big picture it looks pretty good. We’re only six points behind Dale for the lead and we pulled away from everybody else. So we’ll just have to go to South Boston and do a little bit better job.” (Nascar.com)

Matt has qualified 3rd for Sundays race at California. His Friday practice times were 1st and 2nd fastest.

MATT KENSETH No. 17 Lycos.Com Chevrolet: “My laps were all right, it was about what I expected. I ran a four-sixteen in practice and a four-sixteen in qualifying. So I don’t know what happened, but usually what I run in practice is about what I can run. Other guys seem to be able to pick up a little bit, but not me. It’s usually about what we expect.”  (Nascar.com)

The Busch cars are in California today for this weekends 2nd annual Kenwood Home & Car Audio 300 at California Speedway. Qualifying starts sometime this evening, after the trucks qualifying session. The race is Sunday at 4pm eastern, televised live on ESPN.

Matt placed 3rd at California last year, Todd Bodine won the race by fuel mileage. Matt is looking forward to racing on the fast 2 mile track and feels good about his chances on winning.

Matt raced at Slinger Speedway in Wisconsin Tuesday night in the Miller Nationals. Matt drove one of Scott Ollerman’s cars, it was black with the #17 outlined in blue. He qualified 2nd, breaking the track record. Unfortunately the car developed problems early in the race, a plug wire fell off putting Matt two laps down. The problem was fixed and Matt put on a show, getting one lap back and almost a second by the time the race ended, finishing 5th. Check out Slingers website for the complete story and a whole bunch of pictures of Matt and the rest of the drivers.

Team Lycos slips a bit in the points this weekend, falling 3 behind leader Mike McLaughlin. Matt qualified the #17 in 17th position for Saturday nights race. There are some rather interesting rules for this race, you are not allowed to change the setup on the car after your qualifying effort, just make wedge adjustments. This means you need to qualify on a race setup and hope it qualifies well. This race also had competition yellows like the trucks do because of pit congestion. All the cars come in at laps 80 and 160 for 5 laps, taking tires fuel and even making spring and shock changes. This led to a rather un-eventful race because most of the drivers were just biding their time and waiting for the last series to get racy. Matt moved up into the top ten by the first stop and moved into the top five towards the end of the race where him and Earnhardt Jr. put on a nice side by side show for many laps. It was announced Matt tapped the wall late in the race, making him lose several positions but still finishing a respectable 8th.

Matt Kenseth will be racing at Slinger Speedway tonight for round two of the Miller nationals.

The Busch cars are heading to Myrtle Beach this weekend for the Myrtle Beach 250. Qualifying on the .538 mile “D” shaped oval is Saturday at 5pm eastern and the race is at 9:00 televised live on TNN. This is a track that Matt has had previous experience at in Late Models, this also happens to be Earnhardt Jr.’s home track...

Here is an article written by Dave Kallmann of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from last weekends race.

It was quite a busy weekend for Matt Kenseth and Team Lycos crew at the Milwaukee Mile. During the first practice session, they discovered the engine had some problems and there was water in the oil. With qualifying coming up soon, the crew re-sealed the intake manifold and filled the motor up with fresh oil just in time to take to the track. Matt managed to qualify in the 13th position despite a very loose setup, enhanced by the sun coming out on Matt’s first lap. As soon as Matt got back into the pit area, the Team Lycos crew went to work, pulling out the old engine and replacing it with a fresh Katech motor, in time for happy hour. Then it was on to the Jefferson Speedway where Matt signed autographs for hundreds of fans at his old home track.
  
The race on Sunday began under clear blue skies and the hometown fans were eager to watch Matt fly through the field. Matt moved from 13th to 9th, looking fast and smooth until a “racing incident” involving Matt and Randy Lajoie sent the #17 spinning out of turn 4, just missing the outer wall. Matt found himself pointed the wrong way with a line of cars screaming by blocking his way. By the time Matt was able to get turned around and back on track, Earnhardt Jr. was within a half a straight away of him and Matt was in very last place. At this point I thought Matt would soon be lapped and all hope for a top ten gone, but he proved me wrong and busted out some very fast lap times, actually increasing his distance from the ultra-fast #3. A few cautions and pit stops later, Matt was back with the leaders and finished the race in 5th, his ninth top 5 of the year.

Team Lycos hangs on to the points lead with a great 5th place finish. (I think Matt has a 20 point advantage over Mike McLaughlin and a 22 point lead over Jr. The Un-Official results from Nascar.com appear to be wrong)

Matt comes home this weekend to the Milwaukee Mile!! Qualifying for the DieHard 250 is Saturday at 12 Eastern and the race is Sunday at 2 pm (Eastern) televised live on CBS. Matt has a busy schedule this weekend and will be making several appearances...

July 3, 9:00 a.m.: Will be at the “Firecracker Breakfast”
at the City Hall, corner of Greenfield Ave. and 76th
Street, West Dallas, WI

July 3, 5-6 p.m.: Signing autographs at the Solid
Gold McDonalds in West Allis, WI

July 3, 7:00 p.m.: Grand Marshall of the 4th
of July Parade which is at the corner of Greenfield Ave.
and 70th Street, West Dallas, WI

July 4, 6-8 p.m.: Signing autographs at the
Jefferson Speedway, Jefferson, WI

Last year at this race, Matt destroyed the primary car when the throttle stuck wide open during a practice session, putting Matt hard into the turn one wall. They were only able to put a few laps on the backup car before qualifying started. Starting from the 27th spot, Matt was able to finish in 12th with a car that was not setup to be raced at this type of track. Look for Matt to be very fast this weekend in front of his home town fans.