Grand opening special to feature $10 donation on every autographed item purchased during month of December to the Pettys’ Victory Junction Gang Camp

CHARLOTTE, N.C., (December 4, 2002) — Emerging NASCAR star Matt Kenseth is pleased to announce the grand opening of MattKensethStore.com, owned and operated by the Kenseth family featuring die-cast and other officially licensed Kenseth racing souvenirs and memorabilia.

“I am thrilled to announce the grand opening of my online store. As part of our December grand opening, for an additional $10 per item, I will sign any item available in our store for the Christmas season. I am even more pleased to donate the $10 per autographed item to the Victory Junction Gang Camp, founded for kids by Kyle and Pattie Petty, in honor of Adam Petty. The Petty family has established a wonderful program to provide for children with chronic or life threatening illnesses. Hopefully by offering unique Christmas items, the Matt Kenseth community will be able to raise substantial proceeds for the Victory Junction Camp Gang,” stated Kenseth.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (November 17, 2002) — The 40th place finish in the Ford 400 was not indicative of the championship potential demonstrated by Matt Kenseth and the DEWALT Team in 2002. Sure, it was not the happiest way to end the season, but the No. 17 team has nothing to hang their heads about. A season consisting of five wins, a pit crew championship, one pole position, 11 top-5’s and 19 top-10’s is quite impressive. Kenseth and the two-time World Champion DEWALT pit crew finished eighth overall in the Winston Cup Series points behind champion Tony Stewart.

Kenseth started the Ford 400 in 13th position. He quickly moved up into the top-10 but was fighting a loose racecar. The DEWALT crew made air pressure and track bar adjustments on the first pit stop. A two tire pit stop on lap 76 put Kenseth into the fourth position, but he fell back to eighth when the car became loose again.

As the race wore on, the DEWALT Ford Taurus got better and better. Matt moved into the sixth position. When the team reached their fuel window, crew chief Robbie Reiser decided to bring Kenseth down pit road to top off the fuel tank — so Matt could go the distance if the race stayed caution-free.

Kenseth was 15th when the race restarted. On lap 223, disaster struck when the words “We blew up, I’m taking it to the garage,” were said on the radio communications. The No. 17’s day was finished, as was the 2002 season.

Teammate Kurt Busch went on to win the Ford 400 from the pole position, and Tony Stewart won the championship by 38 points over Mark Martin.

Kenseth finished a career high eighth place — earning him a spot on stage at the Winston Cup Series banquet in New York City on December 6th. He has nothing to be upset about — it was a “dream season.”

Ford 400 • November 17, 2002
Homestead-Miami Speedway • Homestead, FL

Homestead-Miami Speedway Performance Summary

Date	Start	Finish	Laps	Money	Status
11/12/00	28	21	264/267	$50,500	Running
11/11/01	21	27	266/267	$49,450	Running

Starts: 2
Wins: 0
Top 5: 0
Top 10: 0
Top 15: 0
Money won: $99,950
Laps Completed: 530 / 534 = 99.9%

Matt Kenseth’s Thoughts On Homestead:

“I would like to have the confidence of going into Homestead knowing we can win again. It would be awesome to have six wins in one season. With competition as tight as it is, I don’t see that happening, but I hope we run well and pick up some positions in the points. I’d like to see my teammate Mark Martin win the championship this weekend. The points battle has been so tight all year long and this is our last chance.”

Crew Chief Robbie Reiser’s Thoughts On Homestead:

“We are taking car MMR-020. This car made its debut at Homestead last year, but posted a sub par finish after having an alternator wire failure. So far during the 2002 season, MMR-020 has posted one top five and one top ten finish in three outings to include Las Vegas (14th), Indianapolis (3rd), and Kansas (7th).”

Spotter Mike Calinoff’s Thoughts On Homestead:

“Homestead, being a relatively new facility, took care in providing the best possible vantage point for the spotters — so it’s an easy place to work. As for the team, there’s probably no better way to enter the last race of the season coming off a win — especially in the manner in which we did it.”

NOTES OF INTEREST:

DEWALT MILLION-DOLLAR CHALLENGE WINNER… Congratulations to Jon Smith of Delaware, Ohio, who beat the Million Dollar Challenge on the front stretch of Phoenix International Raceway with a time of 6.77 seconds to win a million dollars.

BLOOMIN’ FAVORITE… Kenseth won his sixth Outback Steakhouse Bloomin’ Favorite driver of the race award with his win in Phoenix. He is set to win $75,000 in awards if he hangs on to the lead.

CLOSE TO THIRD… Kenseth is only 72 points out of third place in the point standings.

2002 YEAR TO DATE SEASON TOTALS
POINTS	4,389 / 8th
MONEY WON	$3,834,297
LAPS COMPLETED	9,973 / 10,418= 96%
STARTS	35
POLES	1 Dover
WINS	5  Rockingham, 2/24 Texas, 4/07 Michigan, 6/16 Richmond, 9/7 Phoenix, 11/10
TOP FIVE	11
TOP TEN	19

Nascar.com: Two-tire triumph
RacingOne: Kenseth Rises in Phoenix
RPM: Kenseth scores fifth win of season
CNNSI: NIFTY MOVE: Kenseth uses pit strategy to capture fifth win of season
AJC.com: Kenseth doesn’t let gas snafu bug him
Gaston Gazette: Two tires drive Kenseth to No. 5
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Kenseth, crew take the fifth
Roanoke.com: Kenseth winning on fumes
Journalnow.com: Kenseth nabs win in Phoenix
Boston.com: Kenseth, pit crew win Checker Auto Parts 500
Vegas.com: Kenseth’s late two-tire change reaps dividends
TampaB ay.com: Crew aids Kenseth’s win again
USAToday: Kenseth wins race
Catchfence: Matt Kenseth Rises As A Fiery Phoenix
StockCarCity: A Handful of Wins

AVONDALE, Ariz. (November 10, 2002) — It was one of the biggest weekends ever in the history of DEWALT Power Tools as a Winston Cup Series sponsor. Not only did their driver Matt Kenseth make it to victory Lane for the fifth time this season, but they crowned the “King of the Drill” when Jon Smith from Delaware, Ohio beat the DEWALT Million Dollar Challenge to drill five screws in 6.74 seconds to win the cash.

Throughout the weekend, DEWALT’s Million Dollar Challenge Finalists participated in festivities at the trackside Rolling Thunder display. Driver Matt Kenseth and car owner Jack Roush also met with the finalists on Saturday afternoon and wished them luck.

The finals took place on the frontstretch of Phoenix International Raceway prior to the Checker Auto Parts 500 on Sunday afternoon. Jon Smith won the big money and was presented a check for one million dollars from DEWALT’s World Wide President Paul McBride and Matt Kenseth.

Kenseth was pumped up by the time the green flag dropped for the race. He and crew chief Robbie Reiser made major changes to the same car they drove to victory in Richmond earlier in the fall. Kenseth started 28th but moved up quickly.

Caution came out on lap 27, and the team pitted for two tires on lap 28. They went from 21st to 10th on the track and Kenseth again began to move through the field.

He was the leader when he came into the pits under the green flag and ran out of gas on pit road. Kenseth coasted down the pit lane, and the team scurried to spray ether in the car to restart it. He went back out onto the track in 24th place.

The DEWALT team caught a break when a caution flag flew on lap 133. Matt had raced his way to the 16th position and the team opted to pit for two tires advancing them to 11th.

The entire day the car handled to Kenseth’s liking. Only minor adjustments were made as he picked off positions one by one. The turning point of the race came on lap 259 when the team pitted for the final time for two tires. Kenseth had the lead with 46 laps to go in the 312 lap event, and never looked back.

Kenseth gave DEWALT their fifth win of the season — more than any other driver on the Winston Cup circuit for 2002. Kenseth remains 8th in the point standings going into the final race of the season in Homestead.

The following are post race interview quotes courtesy of Ford Racing’s Dan Zacharius:

MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE

WHAT ABOUT THE LAST STOP? “Yeah, our last pit stop was a big key point of the race. The other thing was when we ran out of gas, we didn’t get a lap down and that was a big help too. But the last pit stop, to get two tires, our car really worked well on two tires today instead of four for some reason. It was actually faster on two, so when we got two that last time, I got clean air and got up front. I was able to pull away right away and that was a big advantage.”

WHAT ABOUT THE ROUSH CONSISTENCY THIS YEAR? “We’ve had a building year. We’re looking forward to an even greater 2003. We expect to bring virtually everybody back that’s got key position in the teams and it’s been just an awesome year. Matt’s had the kind of year this year that he hoped to have last year, and, of course, it didn’t work out for us. Mark’s back on the trail. Kurt is certainly on a mission and Jeff Burton is renewed with his new crew chief and his testing program.”

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU RAN OUT OF GAS? “I was in almost the worst place you can be when you run out of gas. It started, I was past the pit entrance obviously and I was almost to the start-finish line and it started faltering. It kind of kicked up again and faltered again and the engine was totally off by the time I got to turn two, so I had to coast all the way around. I slowed up extra getting on pit road because I didn’t have a tach reading to get on pit road and I was scared of speeding, so I slowed up extra getting on there. So by the time I got to my pit, we were real slow. We basically stayed on the lead lap because we had a really fast four-tire stop. They did a good job of getting fuel in the carburetor and fuel in the fuel cell right away and getting it cranked up. And we had a fast car. I think we were leading at the time, even though it was through green flag cycles. But before the pit stops started I believe we were in the top five or thereabouts, so that’s what kept us on the lead lap.”

ARE YOU SURPRISED NOBODY ELSE TRIED TWO TIRES? “The 2 car did and you’ve got to remember we were running third at the time, so it got us two spots and that’s the two spots we needed. It’s an advantage to be up front, but, still, if the tire wasn’t like it was today, usually four tires will still prevail with 50 laps to go. Almost every time you’d rather have four tires and get by, but just for some reason, my car felt better on two. If track position wasn’t an issue and I could get two or four today and only had 20 or 30 laps on my left sides, I’d rather have two because my car was faster on ’em. So, that’s something that’s never happened to me in my racing career, but that’s how our car was today.”

DID ROBBIE SAY ANYTHING WHEN YOU RAN OUT OF GAS? “Sorry (laughing). No, he didn’t say too much. He just told me where the leader was and I was able to get away from the leader a lot because he was in some traffic and I was able to put about a straightaway on ’em and then we caught a quick caution and got caught back up. We just concentrated and tried not to take our eyes off the target and tried to concentrate on getting some track position back. We lost a bunch doing that and we had to concentrate on trying to get it back and that’s what we worked on.”

THE 25 POINTS WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO MARK NEXT WEEK. YOUR THOUGHTS ON ANY APPEAL? “Roush Racing’s president Geoff Smith is really in control of this situation. I am so upset, so out of my mind, that I can’t organize a decent thought that would be reasonable to set a strategy around. Geoff is looking at the thing, but, by my arithmetic, that’s the third time something that was unwarranted and unjust and untimely has happened to me and I don’t forget those things.”

HOW CERTAIN WERE YOU IT WAS OVER AFTER RUNNING OUT OF GAS? “I wasn’t sure at all my day was done. Obviously, you’re upset for a lap or two and you think about it a little bit, but, if you say my day is done and you give up, we wouldn’t be sitting here. You just have to keep working. Obviously, it’s frustrating and if we didn’t get the car cranked back up and lost a lap and there was a quick caution, if we were a lap down it would have hindered our efforts, and it still did make it a lot more difficult for us to be able to pull off the win, so it was a little bit upsetting. But, yet, that is the first time since I’ve been with Robbie in ’97 that he’s ever run me out of gas, so that’s a pretty good record.”

WAS TRACK POSITION IMPORTANT OR CLEAN AIR IN BUILDING THE LEAD? “It’s a combination of many things, but the biggest thing that helped me get the big lead — besides not having anybody in front of me for the first time all day — was the tire situation. On two tires my car would really take off. Even on qualifying day here, if you’d run a lap and go right back out ten minutes later, you’d run faster than you would on cold stickers, so it just seemed like the tires would take off when they were used like that — at least for the first few laps. They’d give up a little at the end, but they’d take off right away. That was a big key. It still does help to be in the front. I had a great handling race car today, but when you got behind people you still had to really, really work hard to get by ’em. It would still make my car a lot, lot tighter than it was if I wasn’t with anybody. So that’s just kind of the nature of the beast and the way racing is today. It makes it tougher to pass, but, yet, if you can get your car to handle good enough you can still pass.”

DID YOU TALK TO ROBBIE ABOUT THE FUEL SITUATION GOING TO VICTORY LANE? “I was just joking with my guys, our jackman, Russ Strupp, he was the crew chief on our Busch car for a few years and when Jeff Vandermoss hurt his back, Russ came in and filled in as jackman. As it so happened with the way our Busch deal and everything went, that Jack and everybody brought him on full-time, so now he works for Roush Racing and he’s our full-time jackman and fabricator in our shop. We were in Atlanta one time and we were leading the race in the Busch car and Russ was my crew chief. We were leading the race and I watched everybody pit and we were the last one out there, and he ran me out of gas. I give him a hard time about that. I’ve been teasing him about that for three years, so today I said we must have let Russ figure the fuel mileage. That’s all I said. I was just giving Russ a hard time.”

DO YOUR OTHER THREE CARS BECOME BLOCKERS NEXT WEEK TO GIVE MARK A BETTER CHANCE? “The short answer to that is no. We are one race team that races four cars, but the feeling of fair play does pervade the team. If Tony Stewart wins by more than 25 points, we’ll certainly celebrate his victory as we should, as being our champion going into next year and the guys, I’m sure, without any conversation, will give him every consideration to have clean track and an opportunity to do what he needs to do.”

CAN YOU CHARACTERIZE THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS WITH THE BUSCH TITLE AND THE POINTS SITUATION? “I feel like I’m 16 years old when I was a sophomore in high school and my most unfavorite teacher gave me a good conduct award. That’s what a NASCAR championship means to me right now.”

HOW DOES YOUR TEAM’S EFFORT BOOST YOU FOR NEXT YEAR? “I don’t want to sound greedy on this thing and I’m certainly not cocky. The year we had last year took me to my absolute knees. I was pretty sure I wasn’t gonna be able to do this thing, but the way we’ve been running lately and after Kurt had won his two races, I was really looking forward to a sweep. I was disappointed. I was happy for Johnny Benson, but I was disappointed we were not able to win the last five.”

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO WORK FOR JACK? “It depends on the day (laughing). Really, we’re one big team. I honestly have to say that every time I’ve asked Jack for something, and it works this way for everybody on the team, if we need something and we have a good case to support it and it’s something reasonable, he gives it to us. It doesn’t matter what it costs or how hard it is to get, he gives us whatever we need to race and that’s my favorite thing about Roush Racing. If we want to build a car and put the body on backwards, if we’ve got a good case to support why it will be better, he’ll let us build it. We have a lot of freedom to do the things we need to do to be good race teams. We had years like last year, but, yet, it helps us learn to have years like this year and we’re hoping that with the combination we have right now — it seems Jimmy (Fennig) and Robbie being in the same building with me and Kurt has really seemed to help the program out a lot. And with the addition of Randy Goss and Greg Biffle, I think it’s gonna make the team stronger too. We have a great organization and everything is going really good right now.”

ANY WORRIES THE LAST 20 LAPS? “It’s easy to say afterwards no and it’s smooth sailing, but I always do. Two of these races this year — Michigan we were leading with three to go and they threw a red flag. We ended up winning, which was good, and Rockingham in the spring we were leading with four to go and a yellow came out and they almost got a red flag out of it. So it’s not over till it’s over. I get real nervous on those restarts and even if you have a good-sized lead and you’re winding down to the end of the race, until I see three or four to go, I don’t get comfortable at all because I know that they’ll still throw that red flag. Sometimes the red flag is good and sometimes a lot of bad stuff happens with ’em, so it kind of makes the leader a target. So I always worry about that more than anything.”

YOU’LL HAVE THE MOST WINS THIS YEAR. HOW DOES THAT TRANSLATE TO A TITLE BID NEXT YEAR? “I mean, we had several things that cost us points. If you look back, the single biggest thing is the driver making mistakes. I’ve been places and lost my head a little bit. I’ve been so excited about running good this year that maybe sometimes I’ve overdrove my cars and made some mistakes. Like at Watkins Glen, for instance, we probably had a third or fourth place car — or better — and I drove it into the sand trap on lap 10. That’s just stupid, so those kinds of things I have to be smarter with. We broke some parts and pieces earlier in the year that I think we learned from and made them better, so, hopefully that will be better. Hopefully, I’ll make less mistakes and we’ll make less mistakes as a team. It’s all about the guy who is the most competitive, but it’s also about the guy who is the smartest and can get his car to the end of the race every week.”

HOW WILL YOU HANDLE THIS WEEK? “Mark, from time to time, gets down on himself — to the point of destruction, to the point of not being productive. We had talked a little about his dad today, about Julian Martin, before the race started in the hauler. I stuck my head over the window and made an unpleasant reference to the car. I said, ‘Just treat it like Julian Martin was sitting beside of you today. Just go for it.’ But, anyway, I’m just trying to keep Mark focused. It would be great if he could win another race. It would be great if he could close on Tony, but Tony definitely has got the edge and it’s based on NASCAR’s action and the way Tony and that team has run all year. They’ve been the best team and the 25 points wouldn’t have reversed the standings right now, it would have just made it closer.”

WHAT ABOUT ALL THESE WINS? “I don’t know how to explain this properly, but in the Busch Series after we won five or six races, I’d be pretty comfortable. I knew we’d go to the track and we’d be one of the cars to watch and we’d have a shot at winning and should be able to win three or four or five races a year, if we have an average year. I don’t feel like that over here. It’s so competitive and so tough. I’m still surprised with all the wins this year, but I’m still surprised we’ve won ’em. I’m real grateful for the wins, I’m real surprised and when I show up at the race track I don’t think, ‘Man, we can win this weekend.’ I think about trying to qualify in the top 25 and I think about trying to run with the leaders and put ourselves in position to win. I don’t have that comfort level over here where I think next week I’m gonna go to Homestead and qualify in the top 15 and be one of the leaders and have a shot to win. I don’t have that comfort yet. It’s just so competitive over here. Some weeks we run great, like Rockingham, we won the spring race. We showed up last week and finished eighth, but we didn’t run that good. We were a 15th-20th place car all day and through good pit work and strategy we got an eighth-place finish. It’s so easy to miss it a little bit and it’s so competitive that I don’t get too far ahead of myself. I still enjoy ’em when they come and just hope that more of ’em come.”

Checker Auto Parts 500 • November 10, 2002
Phoenix International Raceway • Phoenix, AZ

Matt Kenseth’s Performance Summary at Phoenix International Raceway

Date	Start	Finish	Laps	Money	Status
11/05/00	12	42	53/312	$45,700	Accident
10/28/01	38	4	312/312	$97,960	Running

Performance Summary at  Phoenix International Raceway
Starts	2
Wins	0
Top 5	1
Top 10	1
Top 15	1
Money won:	$143,660
Laps Completed	365 / 624 = 58%

Matt Kenseth’s Thoughts On Phoenix:

“PIR reminds me of some tracks I used to run in Wisconsin. It’s pretty flat but we have been running well on these types of tracks this year so I’m hoping to get a good finish. We finished fourth there last year, and hope to improve on it.”

Crew Chief Robbie Reiser’s Thoughts On Phoenix:

“We are taking car MMR-023. This is the car we won Richmond with — it’s a brand new car built this year and only raced at Richmond. That car is undefeated — and we’d like to keep it that way.”

Spotter Mike Calinoff’s Thoughts On Phoenix:

“The toughest part of spotting at Phoenix is that the spotters stand is in turns one and two. It creates a parallax view, which makes it difficult to clear the cars on the front and backstretch.”

NOTES OF INTEREST:

PIT CREW COMPETITION… On Saturday, November 2, the DEWALT team became repeat UNOCAL 76/ World Pit Crew Champions when they pulled off a 16.832-second pit stop shattering their own world record and pocketing $40,000.

MILLION DOLLAR PAINT SCHEME… The No. 17 car will sport the DEWALT MILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE Flame paint scheme this weekend to commemorate the DEWALT MILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE Finals taking place throughout the weekend.

APPEARANCES… Matt Kenseth will sign autographs at Home Depot on Friday, November 8th from 6:30-7:30pm. The store address is 1489 N. Dysart Rd Avondale, AZ 85323 Kenseth will make an appearance at the DEWALT Rolling Thunder trackside display on Saturday, November 9th at 11:45pm.

PAINT SCHEME REVEALING… The 2003 DEWALT Power Tools Ford Taurus paint scheme will be unveiled at DEWALT’s Rolling Thunder on Saturday, November 9th at 11:45am.

DEWALT MILLION-DOLLAR CHALLENGE REGIONAL WINNERS ANNOUNCED… The 16 regional winners have driven their five screws in record time and will vie for a chance to win the Million Dollar Challenge during the pre-race ceremonies at Phoenix International Raceway on November 10th. The regional winners are as follows: Mike Fischer from Huntley, IL 8.19 seconds; Phillip Elliot from Glen Aubrey, NY 9.38 seconds; Jon Smith from Delaware, OH 9.94 seconds; Joe Fodera from Sommerville, MA 10.23 seconds; John Seymour from Charlotte, NC 10.43 seconds; Ben Pece from Lyndhurst, OH 10.46 seconds; Darrell Fink from Citrus Heights, CA 10.71 seconds; Scott Brockbank from Orem, UT 10.86 seconds; Bill South from Litchfield Park, AZ 10.97 seconds; Mike Rennie from Kirkland, WA 11.10 seconds; James McAnally from Lake Mary, FL 11.24 seconds; Eric Anderson from Garland, TX 11.39 seconds; Darren Johnson from Pembroke Pines, FL 11.69 seconds; Kane Powell from Panora, IA 12.07 seconds; Dale Howington from Buford, GA 12.12 seconds; Ben Beachy from Mt. Joy, PA 12.56 seconds.
  

2002 YEAR TO DATE SEASON TOTALS
POINTS	4,209 / 8th
MONEY WON	$3,662,402
LAPS COMPLETED	9,661 / 10,106= 96%
STARTS	34
POLES	1 Dover
WINS	4  Rockingham, 2/24 Texas, 4/07 Michigan, 6/16 Richmond, 9/7
TOP FIVE	10
TOP TEN	18
TOP FIFTEEN	24

ROCKINGHAM, NC (November 3, 2002) — Matt Kenseth and the DEWALT Team kept their top-10 streak alive by finishing the Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 at North Carolina Speedway in the eighth position. Kenseth fought an ill-handling race car throughout the 393 laps, but held on for the respectable finish behind first-time Winston Cup winner Johnny Benson.

Kenseth qualified the car in the 19th position. He was a fixture near the top of the speed charts during practice sessions on Saturday. The team brought the same car that went to Victory Lane in the spring race and it performed equally as well.

Saturday afternoon, the DEWALT crew backed up their “World’s Best” status as they won the UNOCAL 76/World Pit Crew Competition with a world record time of 16.832 seconds. The team pocketed $40,000 and bragging rights for another year for their efforts.

When the race began on Sunday, Kenseth began picking off positions almost immediately. It wasn’t long before the car was too loose into and off of the corners at the Rock. The first pit stop for the DEWALT crew came on lap 23 when they made a track bar adjustment and gave Kenseth four fresh tires in 13.21 seconds.

Kenseth moved into the top-15 but the car was still loose, so the team took advantage of a green flag pit stop on lap 100. He pulled onto pit road in 12th and went back out of the pits in eighth. 

The car was stubborn and although the adjustments made a little difference, Kenseth said that is was starting to push in the middle and was loose off of the corners. Long green flag runs almost put the No. 17 car a lap down, but Kenseth fought the car tooth and nail to remain on the lead lap.

By lap 229 the car was too tight for Kenseth to turn. The team made air pressure and wedge adjustments, and pulled a spring rubber out of the car to help the handling. Matt then drove the car from the 15th position to eighth to finish out the day. He never stopped fighting on the track to move forward. Fuel mileage became a potential factor at the end when it was projected that the No. 17 car would run out of gas with two laps to go. Kenseth conserved enough fuel through the last run of the day to finish without incident.

“We really worked for that one,” said crew chief Robbie Reiser. “These guys worked hard for that one, and Matt drove the heck out of that racecar. I could not be happier about this weekend winning the pit crew competition and ending up with a top-10 here at Rockingham.”

Matt Kenseth is eighth in the points battle, 340 behind leader Tony Stewart. The series heads to Phoenix International Raceway next weekend for a showdown in the desert with only two races left in the season.

DEWALT CREW CHAMPIONS AGAIN

ROCKINGHAM, NC (November 2, 2002) — The No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Pit Crew won the 76 UNOCAL World Pit Crew Competition for the second year in a row. The team led by crew chief Robbie Reiser, driver Matt Kenseth, and pit crew coordinator Andy Ward pulled off a 16.832 second pit stop — shattering the world record of 17.695 they set last year to win the $40,000 prize.

The 2002 World Champion crew consists of jackman Russ Strupp, gasman Benjy Grubbs, front tire changer Phil Drye, front tire carrier Justin Nottestad, rear tire carrier Bryan Dunaway, rear tire changer Dave Smith, and Dave Paronto on catch can. Other members of the team (who do not go over the wall) on hand were Ed Young, Jim Guadette, Dan Walkup, Chip Bolin, Matt Millard, Todd Millard, Jeff Vandermoss and Randy Stack, Mike Calinoff and Chip Bolin.

“These guys are awesome, and they deserve it,” said driver Matt Kenseth. “It is all about one pit stop, but these guys have done it over and over on pit road all year, and they won this again for the second year in a row.”

“We all work together, and have fun together,” explained Robbie Reiser. “I remember when we all started, we were all new at this. We’ve stayed together and just kept practicing and these guys have shown they are capable of winning the race off pit road week in and out.”

The last time the pit crew championship was won back to back was in 1984 with Dale Earnhardt’s crew in the late 80’s.

One factor Kenseth’s crew did not have last year was pit crew coordinator Andy Ward. The addition of Ward to Roush Racing has been a positive addition since Mark Martin’s team placed second, Kurt Busch’s team was third, and Jeff Burton’s team placed sixth.

When asked how Ward tackled the task of training all four Roush teams for the weekly pit road battles, he replied, “We have a lot of talent at Roush. I just basically try to keep the groups together and try to reinforce good training habits as far as exercise and conditioning. I just tried to reinforce the good crews our crew chiefs had already built.”

Jack Roush was also on hand for the good showing of his teams. “Andy (Ward) is the coach for all the teams. The crew chiefs decided last year, and I supported it, that we needed to have a full time coach. We upped our practice from one time a day to two times a day, three days a week to get ready for this. There are a couple of things to note as we go through here, the kind of depth we’ve got, these guys work together and the practice together. It wasn’t so long ago that I wasn’t sure if these racecar mechanics would still be able to change tires. If you remember we had an influx of college athletes that came through that didn’t have the mechanical aptitude that these guys have. These guys work every day on the cars and they have the duality in their function. It’s wonderful that they’ve been able to challenge one another and rise to the level that the professional athletes brought. They are the best of the best. I couldn’t be prouder of them.”

The DEWALT team will have little time to allow the victory in the pit crew competition sink in as it will be business as usual less than 24 hours later. They will try to sweep the races at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham for the year and back up their spring win on Sunday in the Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400.

News Articles:
Nascar.com: Kenseth’s crew defends title in crew competition
rpm.espn.com: Roush teams sweep top three spots
ThatsRacin.com: Kenseth’s crew does it again with another record stop