With win under belt, will Kenseth start taking more chances on track?
Matt Kenseth's victory last week at Bristol Motor Speedway all but guaranteed him a slot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, which means he will have a chance to compete for the series championship over the final 10 races of the season.
Winning one of the 26 races in the Sprint Cup regular season takes a tremendous amount of pressure off drivers and emboldens teams to gamble.
Last year, for example, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the season-opening Daytona 500 and then gambled on winning in Las Vegas, where he was leading when he ran out of gas on the last lap.
It was a good risk to take -- once he had that first victory and the Chase slot that went with it, it mattered not a whit whether Earnhardt finished second or 42nd at Las Vegas. Even though that gamble didn't pay off, strategically it was a good bet make.
So now that he has a victory this year, is Kenseth going to become a gambler and a daredevil and change his approach?
"I've got to be honest, mine really doesn't and I hope the team's doesn't either, really, to be honest with you," Kenseth said Friday at Richmond International Raceway. "I think that every week you show up with the idea of trying to qualify the best you can and trying to win the race. If you can't win, you want to finish second. If you can't finish second, you want to finish third. You always want to do the best you can. I've never been to the racetrack and not wanted to win and to do my best or not wanted to finish the best I could."
And so, this weekend, it's business as usual for Kenseth.
"I just don't feel like any of that changes," the 2003 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion said of his philosophy following the Bristol victory. "I know that where you are in the point standings doesn't have a big effect to where they rack you up when September comes along, but, man, we're only in April and we want to race hard every week and try to get the best results we can every week for our team and our sponsors and everybody involved."
