Kenseth: Rain man

He ends drought with Daytona 500 victory

Joey Logano, the pride of Middletown, Conn., hit the wall in his first Daytona 500. He was credited with a last-place finish. (Glenn Smith/Associated Press)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Raindrops kept falling on his hood.

For 17 minutes, Matt Kenseth sat in his No. 17 Ford. It was parked on pit road at Daytona International Speedway in a steady rain. After the 51st Daytona 500 started under the threat of precipitation, the dark clouds finally burst at 6:31 p.m., bringing to a halt the 200-lap race with 152 complete and Kenseth in the lead.

"I just wanted to wait in my car until it was over or we were going to go racing again," Kenseth said last night about his decision to not mingle on pit road. "I didn't want to get my emotions too high."

Seventeen minutes later, NASCAR officials declared Kenseth, who had won 16 races in 328 starts but none last year, winner of his first career Daytona 500.

When it was over, though, Kenseth added to the torrent by dissolving into a puddle of tears. It was an astonishing display of emotion from a driver who is normally guarded with his emotions.

"Just to win a race after our year last year, I didn't know if I was ever going to do that again," Kenseth said. "And then to pull off the Daytona 500, it's just unbelievable."

Kenseth's 17th career Sprint Cup triumph ended a drought that began after the 2007 season-ending Ford 400.

"I'm glad all the numbers lined up for us," said Kenseth, who got a huge push from runner-up Kevin Harvick to make a backstretch pass of Elliott Sadler on Lap 146 just before the race's eighth and final caution after an accident involving Aric Almirola and Kasey Kahne. "I don't know if I believe in all that [numerology], but I'm glad they all lined up."

Kenseth, 36, who drives for car co-owner Jack Roush but whose owner of record is Red Sox owner John Henry, had to thank his lucky stars, not to mention his first-year crew chief Drew Blickensderfer, for overcoming a crash in Thursday's Gatorade Duel that forced him to start from the rear of the 43-car field in his backup ride. Although Kenseth initially complained about the car, his crew constantly pounded at the problem, making adjustments along the way and enabling Kenseth to go from 39th at the start of the race to the top 10 by Lap 30 and third 10 laps later.

"I thought if we ended up in the right line at the right time and everything else goes well, this car is capable of winning," Blickensderfer said.

When Kenseth, the 2003 Cup champion, needed to come in for four tires and fuel on Lap 120, his crew delivered a timely pit stop that enabled him to gain track position. So much so, he managed to avoid getting caught up in a 10-car melee triggered by the collision of lapped cars driven by Brian Vickers and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who got pushed below the yellow line. Frustrated at a one-lap penalty he incurred for pitting outside his box, Earnhardt seemed to retaliate against Vickers's attempt to block him on the backstretch by punting Vickers into heavy traffic.

"To wreck somebody intentionally like that in front of the entire field is really kind of dangerous," said Vickers, who was trying to protect his position to gain a free pass on the next caution. "That's my biggest problem with it but apparently he wanted a caution pretty bad."

Said Earnhardt, "Penalize me? For what? I got ran into and sent below the yellow line. I don't want to go down there, I didn't aim to go down there. I got sent down there."

No matter. The damage was done. The ensuing pileup collected the blazing fast No. 18 Toyota of Kyle Busch, who to that point had led 88 laps, in addition to Carl Edwards.

"It was really a team effort," Kenseth said. "Without that last really good pit stop, we could have been in the wreck. They did their job and got us up there when we needed the track position. After that wreck, I felt like we were the fastest car up in the lead group."

While everything aligned perfectly for Kenseth, Sadler was left at a loss after he came up "a half a lap short," he said.

"If you would've told me at the beginning of the day if I would take a fifth-place finish and lead some laps at the Daytona 500, I probably would have took it," said Sadler. "It's a great way to get a good start to the season. But to be a half a lap short from being the champion of the Daytona 500 is very emotional to me. Had a chance to win it. Just made one mistake off of Turn 4."

Seconds after Kenseth and Harvick freight-trained their way past Sadler, it began to rain. That's when Kenseth's emotions began to well up.

"As soon as we took the lead, from nowhere I heard Matt Kenseth kind of scream, 'Rain! Rain! Rain!' That's very uncharacteristic of him," said Blickensderfer. "So when the caution came out, he said, 'What's it look like? How's the radar?' I said, 'It's here, it's going to be here. It's going to rain for a couple of hours.' "

Kenseth replied: "Let's just stay calm here."

Said Blickensderfer, "I think that was him catching himself thinking, 'OK, this could be a good thing here.' But he's so calm, cool, kind of ice cold that you usually don't have to say anything to Matt to calm him down."

And so, for 17 minutes, Kenseth patiently waited for the end of a drought, all while trying to keep his emotions from overflowing.

"I was just kind of hoping," he said, "it would keep raining."