During a season when victories continually slipped away, it would have been easy for Matt Kenseth to question and point fingers at himself and those around him.
Through it all, though, Kenseth, knew eventually circumstances would eventually work in his favor. He and his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team were simply too talented and their cars too fast to not eventually win.
Thus, Kenseth didn’t bemoan when teammate Denny Hamlin defied an agreed upon game plan and instead passed Kenseth for lead on the final corner of the final lap of the Daytona 500. The following week, when a pit road penalty took away an excellent chance to win, Kenseth didn’t criticize his team for the infraction, only the lack of communication that kept him uninformed that a penalty had been committed.
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When another teammate, Kyle Busch, prioritized his own self-interests first at Martinsville Speedway, Kenseth understood. A potential win hung in the balance and Busch needed to do what was best for himself and his team. That’s racing.
There was no despair when crashes ended strong runs at Las Vegas Motor Speedway or Bristol Motor Speedway or Talladega Superspeedway. Racing can often be cruel, a fact Kenseth, the 2003 Cup Series, fully comprehends.
And so it was more than appropriate that in the strangest race of 2016, where calamity regularly struck and odd occurrences were the norm, that it was Kenseth who emerged victorious Sunday at Dover International Speedway.
“I feel like the way we’ve been running, eventually law of averages are going to work out, you’re going to get your wins, your finishes,” Kenseth said. “It’s going to happen sooner or later.”
Unlike many other instances this season, Kenseth didn’t have one of the best cars at Dover. Pole-sitter Kevin Harvick appeared poised to blitzkrieg the field, leading 116 of the first 117 laps and building multi-second gaps on second-place. Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. each asserted themselves in the middle stages, as did Kyle Larson.
But just as fate had conspired against Kenseth throughout the season, on Sunday he was the beneficiary of others’ misfortune.
Harvick had the fastest car, except he kept routinely losing spots on pit road, which cost him valuable track position and directly attributed to getting swept into a pair of accidents. Keselowski hit a backmarker while running second, ripping the front fender off his Ford. Truex, whose hardships in 2016 surpasses even Kenseth’s, was victimized when Jimmie Johnson’s car inexplicably slowed on a restart triggering an 18-car pileup that eliminated several contenders.
Presented with golden opportunity, Kenseth capitalized.
“It was one of those days where everything lined up for us at the end of the race,” Kenseth said. “… It all worked out for us, kind of the opposite as I feel like it’s been going the last couple months.”
Remaining even keel amidst the inevitable highs and lows of the sport is a Kenseth forte, a characteristic that has served him well.
“To have what happened to Matt at Daytona, to see the way he handled that, I think that says a lot about him because you could easily be upset about that,” team owner Joe Gibbs said. “But Matt’s had a great attitude through everything.”
Of course, taking the good with the bad is easier to do when you’re aligned with NASCAR’s most dominant force over the past 12 months.
The organization has seen its four drivers (Kenseth, Hamlin, Busch and Carl Edwards) combine to win seven of 12 races this season and 19 of the past 37 overall. A sustained level of excellence that includes victories on every variance of track on the Sprint Cup Series schedule, triumphs in all four of NASCAR’s marquee events and capped with Busch winning the championship last November.
For his part, Kenseth won five times a year ago. A figure that’s not unrealistic to expect him to equal or surpass in 2016 as, with the exception of a pair of road courses, the summer stretch of events are all on tracks that he’s won previously and evident by JGR’s superiority, the caliber of equipment isn’t a concern.
Not that Kenseth will presume anything.
“You can never take it for granted,” Kenseth said. “I still got to go out and do the work every week and make it happen.”
Just as he did Sunday at Dover.
