Upfront Kenseth realizes he needs to run up front

LOUDON, N.H. - About the only good thing about Matt Kenseth's day was that the Roush Fenway Racing veteran didn't drop any slots in the points race.

But that's because Kenseth entered the Sylvania 300 in the 12th and final Chase for the Sprint Cup grid, the position he'll occupy again going into Sunday's Camping World 400 at Dover International Speedway.

Kenseth, who has qualified for the Chase in all five years of the format's existence, completed only 228 of 300 laps yesterday and limped home to 40th place, the worst finish among the top 12 drivers.

"We didn't have much to work with," said the driver of the No. 17 Ford after visiting the infield care center. "We were really slow today."

On Lap 229, a five-car tangle off Turn 4 saw Kenseth take a pair of tooth-rattling hits. With a bottleneck fast approaching, the No. 45 of Chad McCumbee, which was driving the inside line, drifted up the track and bumped doors with the No. 17. Kenseth skittered away and slammed into the wall, where he then was T-boned by the No. 38 Ford of David Gilliland. Kenseth called it one of the hardest hits he's absorbed in some time.

But what was equally tough for Kenseth to bear was the so-so condition of his Fusion. Within the first 50 laps, Kenseth had fallen to 20th. Kenseth advanced as high as eighth, but couldn't hold his position and fell back again, putting himself alongside some of the lapped cars. Kenseth is now 177 points behind Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson.

"If we can get our cars up better and run up front, most of the time things like this wouldn't happen," Kenseth said of such multi-car wrecks. "If we would have been running where [winner Greg Biffle] and Carl were running, we wouldn't have gotten wrecked to start with. So I always feel it's partially your fault. Even though we got caught up in somebody else's mess, if we would have been running better, we would have been ahead of their mess."

In the first few minutes after a tow truck brought the No. 17 back to the garage, the crew tried to put the battered car back together. They put the car up on the stands, tinkered under the hood, and fiddled with the torn-up front end. But after some hammering and tinkering, the crew packed up their equipment, pushed the Ford back into the hauler, and vacated the seventh stall of the Cup garage.

Their day was over.

"I will not sleep tonight based on what happened to Matt Kenseth," said team owner Jack Roush. "I won't take enough joy and glee from what happened to the 16 [Biffle] and 99 [Edwards] that I'll get past what happened to the 17."

Bowyer slips back
Clint Bowyer and the No. 07 team came into yesterday's race as a favorite for two reasons. Bowyer was the class of the field in last September's Sylvania 300, in which he scored his first career victory, and he the best car in practice throughout this weekend.

But Bowyer finished in 12th place and is now ninth in the Chase, 83 points behind Edwards and Johnson.

Because qualifying was rained out, Bowyer lined up for the start in fifth. He advanced to second by the fifth lap, but fell back and never showed the horsepower he flaunted in the previous Sylvania 300.

McCain drives in
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, arrived at New Hampshire Motor Speedway aboard his "Straight Talk Express" motorcoach yesterday morning two hours before the race, accompanied by his wife, Cindy, and Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling and his wife, Shonda.

Seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty treated McCain and his entourage, which included a Secret Service detachment and press corps, to a tour of the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage at NHMS.

Dissing cousin
Car owner Rick Hendrick, who watched two of his three cars in the Chase finish among the top 5, with Johnson the runner-up and Dale Earnhardt Jr. fifth, spent much of his day on the radio trying to smooth things over between an irate Earnhardt and his crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's first cousin who caught some heat over the radio after a bad set of tires caused Earnhardt to lose his five-second lead after 214 laps. Hendrick came to the defense of Eury, telling Junior to take it easy on his cousin. "They're like brothers," Hendrick said. "They can fuss and say things, but . . . if he doesn't want Tony to go anywhere, if he's put a stake in the ground that he wants Tony Eury Jr., then he needs to treat him a little better on the radio."

A close one
Biffle seemed to experience his only hiccup when he nearly ran over his front tire carrier, Collin Pasi, during a green-flag pit stop on Lap 155. Biffle lost sight of Pasi, who stooped to remove a piece of tape from the brake air duct on the front of the car. "I saw him go across the hood and down and then they dropped the jack and it was like, "didn't see that guy run out of there,' " Biffle said. "I jumped the clutch and was on the gas and then he popped his head up, so I had to push the clutch back in and give him a chance to get out of there, so it was kind of funny, actually." . . . Johnson's second led lap yesterday marked his 1,000th of the season. Johnson led four times for a race-high 96 laps, giving him 1,094 for the season.