Kenseth's good start erases woes of 2005

The 2003 series champion had to scramble to get into the Chase last year.
BROOKLYN, Mich. (AP) -- More than halfway to the 2006 Chase for the Nextel Cup championship, any NASCAR driver close to elimination from playoff contention can look to Matt Kenseth for inspiration.
A year ago, Kenseth arrived at Michigan International Speedway 24th in the standings after the first 14 races, 700 points behind series leader Jimmie Johnson and 320 points from 10th-place Tony Stewart.
The 10-race Chase includes the top 10 drivers in the standings and any others able to remain within 400 points of the leader after the first 26 races of the year. But only the top 10 have made it in the first two years of the Chase.
When the Richmond race was done last September, Kenseth was eighth in the points and solidly in the playoff. The 2003 series champion went on to finish seventh in the standings -- not as good as he had hoped, but a lot better than things looked in June.
The intervening year has changed a lot for the Roush Racing driver. He heads into today's 3M Performance 400 second to Johnson, trailing the leader by just 48 points.
"Looking back on it, I can say I'm definitely glad we've started 2006 the way we have," Kenseth said, smiling. "The first 14 or so races of 2005 were not a lot of fun.
"I wasn't sure we could make the Chase, but we all knew what it would take. The problem was, up until that point, we really hadn't been competitive all year, with the exception of a couple of races. We couldn't afford any more mistakes, and luckily, we didn't make too many more before the Chase."
Beginning the charge
The charge began with a solid fourth-place finish -- only his third top 10 of the season -- on Michigan's 2-mile oval, which has been very good to Kenseth. He won here in June 2002, finished 11th that August and has six consecutive top 10s since.
"At the start of the 2005 season, we were trying some different things with the car to try to pick up some speed here and there," Kenseth explained. "Obviously, it wasn't working. After Darlington [in May] we went back and looked at what we were doing whenever we ran good the previous years and then compared that to what we were doing at the moment, and it wasn't close.
"So we scrapped the new stuff and went back to a lot of what we knew worked and everything seemed to fall in place. Plus, we started to have some things go our way on the track as well."
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