Matt Kenseth said on this week’s NASCAR teleconference that he’s not sorry to see fewer references to the 1.5-mile tracks on the Sprint Cup circuit as “cookie-cutter” arenas.
“All the 1.5-mile tracks are very unique now, especially with some of the tracks’ pavement aging like Texas, and then you have a place like Charlotte where the pavement is really sticky,” Kenseth said. “They are all a lot different. The thing that makes Texas [site of this week’s Samsung Mobile 500] unique is it is real high banked and real fast and the corner exits and entry are real flat.
“It is always a challenge to negotiate that. There are some bumps here and there, but the pavement is pretty worn out. The groove moves around where you can run the top and bottom and it has made for some really exciting racing recently, and I don’t see that being different this week.”
Texas reprieve?
Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished second at Martinsville last weekend and came within four laps of ending a 98-race winless streak, heads to Texas Motor Speedway, site of his first Sprint Cup win in 2000. Yet racing at Texas doesn’t necessarily mean Earnhardt is poised to win again on Saturday night. In his past five races there, he’s finished 20th twice, 25th twice and eighth once.
Numbers game
On the numbers front, Jeff Burton is set to make his 900th start in a major NASCAR series. He has run 589 Sprint Cup races, 306 Nationwide and four Camping World Truck races. And if Kyle Busch can lead 117 laps this weekend, he’ll pass 20,000 laps as a leader across the three major series. In 12 career trips to Texas, he’s led 441 laps in Cup and 1,187 in Nationwide races.
Better year
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who had an average finish of 32.2 after the first five Nationwide Series races last year, opened this season with a top five and four top 10 finishes and leads the points standings headed into today’s race at Texas.
“It was cool going into the off weekend having the points lead because at least we got to hold it for two weeks,” Stenhouse said. “But we plan on holding it a little longer than that.”
He said Texas is his kind of race track. “You run a lot of throttle, which I like to do,” Stenhouse said.
Raikkonen testing
Kimi Raikkonen is testing well in NASCAR as the former Formula One world champion prepares for his debut in a truck owned by Kyle Busch.
After testing for two days at Gresham Motorsports Park in Georgia this week, Raikkonen was at Rockingham, N.C., on Thursday for more laps in the truck.
Busch says the test went well in Georgia, and that Raikkonen was good again at Rockingham.
The Finn will make his NASCAR debut on May 20 driving a Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota Tundra in the Trucks Series race at Charlotte, N.C.
Busch says Raikkonen is also interested in running Sprint Cup and Nationwide races, which is something that will be re-evaluated after his truck debut.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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