• DeWALT Racing and Matt Kenseth get their 3rd victory of the year this weekend at Nazareth Speedway in a race that was delayed by rain for nearly 5 hours. The race was eventually shortened to 168 laps after it was decided there was chance of darkness. :) Matt started from the 7th position and was quickly into the top-five when the race was stopped for 35 minutes at lap 23 for a rain delay. Matt ran a fairly conservative race up to lap 109 when the leaders pitted under yellow. Jeff Green made a costly mistake by missing the pit entrance after leading most of the race, putting him at the back of the lead lap after pitting on lap 110. Matt restarted in 10th, right behind Earnhardt Jr., racing with cars that had about 30 laps on their tires. Matt and Dale quickly closed on race leader Tim Fedewa and Jr. would take the top spot from Fedewa on lap 137. In a controversial move, Fedewa passed Jr. on lap 140 after the yellow flag came out for a bad wreck involving Lyndon Amick and Brad Loney. Jr. passed Fedewa after the re-start but Fedewa came right back on the inside and washed up into Jr. a little, giving Matt room to make a daring 3 wide pass. Matt shot into 1st place, followed by Todd Bodine and Dale Jr. The final caution on lap 154 found Jr. racing Bodine back to the line, which upset Bodine enough to give Jr. a big old tap with the rear end of his car. This would cost Bodine any chance for the win, getting black flagged by NASCAR for having a piece of metal sticking out of the back of his car from contact with Jr. Matt easily walked away from Jr. on the re-start, beating him by 1.5 seconds in the 9 lap sprint to the finish line.
      
• MATT KENSETH No. 17 DeWalt Tools Chevrolet
  (On the pass for the lead.) “Tim (Fedewa) was racing (Dale Earnhardt) Junior real hard off (Turn) 2 and they hit together side by side. They got real loose and I had a real good run so I said ’man, you gotta take advantage of it.’ If it would’ve been earlier in the race, I never would have stuck my nose in there, but with 10 or 15 (laps) to go we had to take a chance. It turned out that I had the best view of the turn. I was lucky that the tires stuck right on the line and I was able to get by them. This car didn’t turn very well when I was behind somebody — it had a bad aero push. When I was in clean air I could hang on and run pretty fast but behind people it wasn’t good. At the end, clean air on the nose helped us a lot and during the caution we really got the tires cooled down and we had enough to do it.”
    
• Matt gains 5 more points on Dale Jr., extending his point lead by 89 in the Championship Battle.

• Roush Racing will have a formal announcement this Sunday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway of Matt’s Winston Cup plans. For a sneak preview of the details, check out this article from Speedvision Online.
    
• In case anybody missed it, Nascar.com had an excellent article about Matt and Roush Racing last week.

• Matt is back on top in the point standings after a great 3rd place finish at Richmond on Friday night. The race ended early Saturday morning because of a long rain delay and many cautions. The Busch cars did not get any practice in since qualifying which helped set the stage for a wreckfest. Matt started from the 18th position and moved into the top-ten before NASCAR threw a mandatory yellow flag to check tire wear. The Reiser Raiders had a great pit stop, putting the DeWALT Tools Chevrolet in the top five for the restart. Matt would remain near the front for the entire race, grabbing the top spot from race winner Mark Martin for one lap to get his 5 bonus points. The big story of the night was Earnhardt Jr.’s wreck which put him behind the wall with a broken rear end for many laps. Jr. went on to finish in 32nd place, putting him 84 points behind Matt in the Championship battle. Elton Sawyer also had problems, finishing 34th after contact with the wall.
    
• MATT KENSETH No. 17 DeWalt Chevrolet
  “It’s great to race against Mark and Jeff Burton. It’s not too bad to finish third to the two greatest drivers there are. The guys put together a brand new car for here and we had next to no practice at all. Like I said these guys gave me awesome pit stops and track position when I needed it.”
    
• MARK MARTIN No. 60 Winn-Dixie Ford
  “Matt (Kenseth) ran good tonight. I was really surprised how well he ran. Jeff Burton really didn’t surprise me. He was testing a different kind of car when we were here and he wasn’t happy with it. So he brought a regular car with the same stuff under it we had. So I knew if we ran good he probably would, too. Jeff Burton is the master here. To beat him tonight is something.”

• Look for an announcement of Matt’s Winston Cup plans the last week of May at Lowe’s (Charlotte) Motor Speedway.

• DeWALT Race Report
  KENSETH GRABS TOP TEN AT LOUDON
  Matt Kenseth captured his sixth top ten of the season last weekend at the New Hampshire International Speedway, bringing the DeWALT Monte Carlo home in eighth spot.
  
  Matt qualified for the 200-lap race in 16th position, despite practicing among the top ten fastest. Once the green flag waved, Kenseth began steadily working his was towards the front. During the first few laps the car in front of Matt checked up on the breaks and he nudged the car ever so slightly. There appeared to be no damage to the car but the motor immediately began overheating. Kenseth nursed the car to the first caution flag, maintaining his 13th position and came into the pit for fresh tires on lap 98. The team removed all of the tape from the front grill, changed tires and made several adjustments to the car. The DeWALT team had an awesome stop and got Matt back out onto the racetrack in 8th position. The overheating problem was now eliminated and Kenseth began working his way up the field.
  
  Matt was in 5th spot when caution waved on the speedway on lap 171. Kenseth ducted into the pits for fresh tires and went back out in 9th place. Matt fell back right after the pit stop, battling a loose car and heavy traffic.
  
  The restart proved to be too congested and the caution flag waved twice before the checkered flag dropped. Matt was involved in last caution flag, tangling with the #66 car. Despite the severe damage, Kenseth crossed the finish line in eighth position.
  
• MAJOR GROUND MADE UP IN POINTS BATTLE
  With Matt Kenseth’s eighth place finish and Dale Earnhardt Jr. 34th place finish at Loudon, Matt was able to make a significant dent in Dale Jr.’s lead in the championship points race. Kenseth is now just 19 points out of the point’s lead. 
  
• 1999 DRIVERS POINTS STANDINGS
  1 Dale Earnhardt, Jr. 1482
  2 Matt Kenseth 1463 (-19)
  3 Elton Sawyer 1453
  4 Jeff Green 1330
  5 Jason Keller 1309
  6 Casey Atwood 1218
  7 Jeff Purvis 1197
  8 Mike McLaughlin 1197
  9 Todd Bodine 1195
  10 Randy LaJoie 1067
  
• MATT THOUGHT’S ON LOUDON
  “We had a car that should have finished fourth or fifth. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. The guys worked real hard all day to make the car better. I just hate they have to spend this week fixing a wrecked race car.”

Matt gets his second win of the year, giving his home town fans a great reason to sit home in front of the TV on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. This was Dale Earnhardt JR’s race to lose, and that is exactly what he did by wiping himself out late in the race after dominating most of it. Dale Jr. had the best car on the track, Matt and Jeff Burton were slowly chasing Jr. down on a long green flag run when Dale just lost it trying to stay in front of Burton and passing a lapped car. Jr. looped his #3 down into the infield, bringing out the caution. He would go a lap down but his car was undamaged other then losing 3rd gear. Dale would get his lap back on the next short green flag run to give Matt and Jeff a run for the win late in the race. The race ended under caution with 2 laps to go, it would have been exciting to see if Jr. could have gotten back up to Jeff and Matt to challenge for the win. Matt started the DeWALT Tools #17 from the 2nd position, based on points due to qualifying being rained out. The first place finish helps Matt in the Championship battle a bit, gaining 5 on Dale Jr. who finished a respectable 3rd despite his spin. Matt now trails Dale Jr. by 95 points.