Kenseth passes teammate for Dover win
Date    2006-06-04 (Dover, DE)
 
By Linda Przygodski - Motorsport.com
 
Matt Kenseth put the heat on Jamie McMurray with three laps to go, to make
the pass for the lead and grab his second win of the season. McMurray looked
poised to finally earn his first win since 2002 but his car started to fall
off in the closing laps of the 400-mile event at Dover International Speedway.
 
Kenseth worked on McMurray for two laps before he was finally able to stick
the No. 17 Roush Ford out front to earn his 12th career win.
 
"It was great," said Kenseth of his run. "We had a great car
all day. We made
the right adjustments to the car. We had a plan and we stuck with it. That is
by far the best we have ever performed here."
 
McMurray, who turned 30 over the weekend, led a race high 95 laps but had to
settle for second. It is his best finish of the season.
 
"Yeah, I am very disappointed, especially to come that close,"
said McMurray.
"I was like three or four laps or something from the end, and when Matt
passed me I lost all momentum. I went up to kind of block him, and when I did
I lost all my speed."
 
Kevin Harvick was third, "That's all I had. I felt like if I could have
cleared the 26 it would have been different. I needed to run up a little bit
and he was able to keep me down there but that's what you got to do here. It
was a lot of fun.the 17 had a great car and was just a little bit better in
the corners but it was a good day for our GM Goodwrench Chevrolet."
 
Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch complete the top five.
 
"We were way too tight at the end," commented Burton. "I was
kind of hoping
something crazy might happen. The way it looked something crazy could have
happened. It didn't work out for us. We'll just keep plugging away and
putting great effort out there. If we do that, the day will come."
 
The two big storylines of the race involved championship hopefuls, Tony
Stewart and Jimmie Johnson. Point leader Jimmie Johnson spun in qualifying
and was forced to start 42nd and share a pit stall with Scott Wimmer and the
No. 4 team. The majority of the day Wimmer was running better than Team 48
allowing the No. 4 car to pit first.
 
Under the first pit stop, Johnson was forced to pit second which mired the
Johnson one lap down in the 40th position on for most of the first half of
the event. Troubles mounted on lap 274, Johnson was running a lap down in
24th when he made contact with the No. 40 and took a slide across the race
track.
 
But as is typical of this team they fought back all afternoon and wound up
getting their lap back and garnering a sixth place finish.
 
"It was a great fight," said Johnson. "We didn't have the speed at the
beginning of the race. We just had to adjust on it. We got down a lap and
fought from there. Once we got back on the lead lap we had the car much more
stable and underneath me and I could race them. We worked our way back up
there. I wish this was a 500-mile race and it may have been a victory for the
Lowe's team."
 
Stewart, racing with a fractured scapula, had Ricky Rudd standing by to
switch driving duties under the first caution. Stewart was forced to start
the event so the points for the race would be credited to him. Stewart
started last since Rudd qualified the No. 20 Chevrolet and had worked his way
to 25th when the first caution fell on lap 37.
 
Stewart and Rudd made the exchange with little difficulty, with Rudd
restarting 38th still on the lead lap. Stewart spent the rest of the race
atop the 20 pit box with crew chief Greg Zipadelli.
 
"This isn't very much fun I can tell you that," said Stewart.
"It's hard to
explain to people how hard it is to get out of your own race car.Not a very
fun way to spend the day. If I can sit up here all day and do something to
help us, to get back to the top ten, Ricky has done an awesome job all
weekend. I am confident we can get him some track position with an adjustment
or two. It will be an awesome day for us."
 
Rudd ran around in the top-20, but was assessed a pass thru penalty for being
too fast entering pit road on lap 210. He fell two laps down, he wound up
finishing 25th.
 
Jimmie Johnson continues to lead the NASCAR Nextel Cup series point
standings. Matt Kenseth (-74), Mark Martin (-216), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (-
282), Tony Stewart (-293), Kasey Kahne (-296), Jeff Burton (-396), Kevin
Harvick (-420), Jeff Gordon (-428) and Kyle Busch (-439) complete the top ten.
 
There were nine cautions for 51 laps and 23 lead changes among 12 drivers.
 
##MMR 2.61(beta).  (copied MP MMR 2.61(beta), was  6-05-06 (0xae)AS:E01/027
NASCAR - All Levels(0xaf)) 


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