Matt
Kenseth captured the ROY title at Atlanta Motor Speedway,
concluding a stellar Winston Cup Season for the first year
driver. Kenseth surpassed all his personal goals for the
season, claiming a win at Charlotte, finishing 14th in the
points race, and coming home as the top finishing rookie
in 16 of the 33 races.
“It’s
a real honor to accept this award,” Kenseth said. “To
come out on top of this great group of rookies is really
special. Dale Jr. is a great racecar driver who beat us in
Busch the last two years and I knew he’d be tough again
this year. He had some bad luck during the middle part of
the season that helped us get ahead. You’re going to see
him win many more races and championships in the future.
Dave Blaney came on strong at the end of the year and the
rest of the guys, Stacy Compton, Mike Bliss and Scott
Pruett, all have bright careers ahead of them. To finish
ahead of that caliber of talent says a lot about the
commitment and talent of this race team.”
Kenseth
will be attending the Winston Cup banquet at the Waldorf
Astoria in New York City on December 8, 2000, and will
accept the Rookie of the Year award on stage. The awards
banquet will be televised live on ESPN.
Kenseth
grabbed his 11th top ten finish of the season at Atlanta
Motor Speedway, bringing the DEWALT Ford Taurus home in
9th spot. Matt qualified for the 500 mile race in 23rd
spot, climbing into the top ten just prior to the halfway
point of the race. Matt climbed as high as fourth while
battling a loose race car but slipped back to 9th as the
checkered flag fell.
“The
very first run wasn’t too bad and then our car got
really loose on us and we fell back quite a bit,”
commented Kenseth. “We kept working on getting it
better, but I’d wear the right-rear tire to the cords
and I had to pit because we had the right-rear burned up.
We got ourselves behind a little bit by pitting early and
one time I went up and hit the wall and lost half the
track to everybody pitting under green. Our car was
probably a little faster than where we finished, but we
made a lot of changes today and they all went in a forward
direction.”
