NASCAR Cup Series

With fight behind him, Matt Kenseth focused on Talladega

Published Oct. 17, 2014 4:49 p.m. ET

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The typically mellow Matt Kenseth was his usual self on Friday at Talladega Superspeedway, a far cry from the enraged driver caught on video sprinting into Brad Keselowski in the Charlotte Motor Speedway garage last week following the Bank of America 500.

While the hot topic of the afternoon was the wild post-race scrap that dominated the headlines, it was the potentially wild race coming up on Sunday that drew Kenseth's focus and attention.

The 2012 winner of this race enters the weekend in ninth in the Contender Round standings, one point out of eighth and on the edge of advancing to the Eliminator 8 Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Despite having one win, five top-five and nine top-10 finishes at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, his confidence to score the win is not as high as it was this time last year.

"We haven't had a particularly good run at the speedways lately," Kenseth said at the beginning of the Challenger Round of the Chase. "I think we were in wrecks at Talladega and Daytona earlier in the year. The last year and a half before that I'd say, yeah, I had more confidence going there more than any place we've been at.

"It depends when you get there. If they've picked our stuff up some and we have a lot of speed and we've got a strong car that can get out front and lead, you have a lot of confidence," he said. "If you have a car that shows up that just doesn't have the speed and you're stuck in the middle of the pack you usually don't feel pretty good about that."

Kenseth has plenty of reason to worry. In his last three starts at Talladega and Daytona, respectively, his best finish is 20th. With a championship battle on the line during Sunday's race, the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has a simple plan: run up front and try to win.

The former series champion admitted he did not look at his Chase position before Friday's media availability at the track, but knows the strategy game will be in full effect on Sunday afternoon.

Facing possible elimination from the Chase, Kenseth would like to be at least eighth in the Chase standings after the smoke clears from Sunday's race.

"I think there's going to be varying strategies," he said. "I think the top few guys that have a big cushion, I would be shocked if they didn't just ride around in the back until the last pit stop or something like that. You never know, this place is unpredictable and enough people get that mindset and you won't have the big wreck until the last lap and if you're not in the front on the last lap then you're not going to get a good finish. Everybody is going to have a different plan."

With each position at a premium and potentially making the difference between making the next round and being eliminated, Kenseth expects the end of the race to get pretty wild.

"It almost always ends with a green-white-checkered and whenever you have a green-white-checkered or less than a 10-lap run or so it's always extremely crazy," he said. "It's always three-wide and sometimes even four-wide. Everybody in there trying to put their car in places where there's not a lot of extra room or maybe no extra room. 

"Everybody wants to win, nobody wants to wreck but everybody wants to win and it just kind of lends itself to that kind of racing," he said, adding that the racing may not change from what has seen in the past at the track. "I'm assuming by what someone told me there's probably four or five cars that it's really important to get that finish and then there's probably another group that it's just important not to get wrecked. So, I think there's going to be a lot going on but I think the finish is going to be intense no matter what."

VIDEO: Matt Kenseth jumps Brad Keselowski following Bank of America 500 at Charlotte

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