Matt Kenseth Wins First Race of 2009

NASCAR is a very competitive activity, the number of talented drivers and teams challenging weekly for each race and ultimately for the championship if they can finish in the top ten consistently enough, is increasing every year. Matt Kenseth surely hopes his luck and fortune for this season has turned after his daily double on Friday afternoon, he won both the pole position for Saturday afternoons Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway and the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 at Darlington’s 1.366-mile egg-shaped track. Matt inherited the lead after misfortune struck the lead car of Kyle Busch, who suffered a cut right-rear tire, and was victories under the record-equaling 10^th caution of the night, after Morgan Shepherd lost control after a restart. Kenseth ended up winning in a green-white-checkered-flag finish in a caution filled race that was six laps longer than the scheduled 147 laps.

Lady Luck showed her ugly head to Kyle Busch with just two laps to go.

Matt finally achieved his first long sought after victory of the 2009 campaign at Darlington Raceway, which is his third at the historic venue that has seen its share of champions and his 25^th victory in the series, which leaves him fifth-best on the list of wins. Friday night probably couldn’t have gone much better for Matt, who has been suffering after a series of miscues and mishaps that left him in 12^th place in the standings after starting out the season by winning the first two cup races of the season.

Busch ended up finishing 16^th after leading for a race-high 143 laps and was only a few laps away from victory when he ended up running over debris from a crash between Scott Lagasse Jr. and Joe Nemechek and cutting his tire. The 16^th place finish did trim Joe Gibbs Racing team’s standings advantage to 37 points and tightened up the season standings heading into the heated part of the year.

Jason Leffler finished second in his Toyota, just ahead of Carl Edwards in third and Erik Darnell in fourth, both of which drive Fords.  Justin Allgaier managed to run consistently by staying out of the way and finished a competitive fifth, ahead of Ryan Newman in sixth, Mike Bliss in seventh place, Jeff Burton in eighth, Brian Vickers who managed to take ninth place and the final position in the top ten was taken by Scott Wimmer.

Image: Newscom