Matt Kenseth maintained his thin lead for the cutoff spot in the playoffs with a season-best second-place finish in the I Love New York 355 at The Glen at Watkins Glen International.
Kenseth started the day from 15th and worked his way up to ninth. He short-pitted the end of the first stage and finished 24th when the stage concluded.
He moved up the running order when those who didn’t short-pit the stage hit pit road under the stage break and drove to a third-place finish in the second stage.
Kenseth didn’t pit under this caution, but did so when Landon Cassill’s car left a tire carcass on the race track on Lap 51. While pitting when he did left him possibly two to three laps short of making it to the end on fuel, the veteran Kenseth conserved just enough to not only make it to the end, but be in position to win.
With two laps remaining, Martin Truex Jr. took over the race lead on a questionable fuel load, and Kenseth was in hot pursuit. Truex almost fumbled the lead twice on the final lap, with a botched entry of the inner-loop and locking up the brakes entering Turn 10. It allowed Kenseth to inch closer and closer, but he couldn’t get to Truex and settled for second.
“Well, that last run after we pitted, we knew we were a little bit short, a few laps short,” Kenseth said. “You know, Martin had a really fast car and deserved to win the race. You know, and we started saving early in that run, just tried to manage the gap. I felt pretty good about our fuel savings and how much we saved. Of course I never really know, I just go by what Jason (Ratcliff) and them tell me. But I felt pretty good about where we were on fuel, but I think Martin had such a big lead, he was able to just kind of slow up as much as I did and make sure he had enough speed just to stay in front of me. It was kind of funny, them last three laps we were both saving pretty hard, and then Jason told me we were good with one to go, and so I stood on it and he stood on it, too. He even missed Turn 6 and tried to give it to me, but I couldn’t get close enough to take advantage.”
Kenseth leaves with a 28-point lead over Clint Bowyer for the final playoff spot.
