HAMPTON, Ga. — It wasn’t pretty, but Matt Kenseth was just happy to be in a NASCAR Nationwide Series Victory Circle after nearly a year.
Kenseth passed Jeff Burton for the lead on lap 186 of Saturday’s Nicorette 300, a race extended three laps beyond its scheduled 195 laps at Atlanta Motor Speedway by a late caution flag.
Kenseth, who acknowledged he didn’t have the fastest car, managed to hold off Kevin Harvick by about three car-lengths in a green-white-checker shootout, winning for the first time since April 14, 2007, at Texas — a stretch of 18 races.
“About time, huh?” Kenseth said, smiling. “You certainly think about getting beat at the end. That happened to us a few times last year.”
Kyle Busch looked like a runaway winner as he led 153 of the first 170 laps before blowing a tire and hitting the wall for the second straight week. That left the battle to Kenseth, Burton and Harvick.
After Kenseth took the lead, Burton faded and Harvick gave chase to the leader, looking several times like he could catch him. But a bad pit stop and ill-timed caution flags at the end allowed Kenseth to maintain control on the way to his 24th Nationwide victory.
“Kevin was really fast,” Kenseth said. “On short runs, I could beat him. After a few laps, he could beat me pretty good.”
When Busch hit the wall on lap 170, it brought out the sixth of eight caution flags in the race and sent the leaders to pit road. Harvick went into the pits in front, but came out sixth.
“I don’t think anything happened,” the disappointed former series champion said. “It was just slow. I’m really disappointed. We gave it away on pit road there at the end. When you get handed these situations, you’ve got to capitalize on them.”
He still thought he could catch Kenseth, but two more caution flags kept cutting off his pursuit.
“I think we were definitely better than the 17 (Kenseth),” Harvick said. “He was better than us on restarts, but we could catch him pretty good after a few laps. We just didn’t get that one long run.”
Kenseth, a Sprint Cup star like his closest pursuers Saturday, had 14 top-10 finishes, including six seconds, in the 18 Nationwide events since he last won in the developmental series.
“Nobody was going to beat him on speed,” Kenseth said, referring to Busch. “I know (his crash) kind of opened the door for everybody.”
Carl Edwards finished fourth, followed by Bobby Labonte, Brad Keselowski and Mike Bliss.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was involved in a three-car crash late in the race and wound up 14th.

Edwards anxious to race after trying week

There are no distractions for Edwards inside his race car.
But that’s the only place he’s been at peace since NASCAR officials discovered the lid from the oil tank on his No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford was missing after his victory last Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
That was the second straight victory for Edwards and it should have been a time to talk about being in first place in the Sprint Cup standings for the first time in his career and about the possibilities of making it three in a row in today’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Instead, he has spent most of the week answering questions about that missing lid, being docked 100 points — dropping him to seventh in the standings — and losing crew chief Bob Osborne to a six-week suspension.
Edwards figures he has been able to handle the situation pretty well.
“I believe the last year or two I’ve been hardened a lot,” he said. “The only distraction is having to … talk about it.
“I have a very simple job and that’s not to make any mistakes in that race car and go as fast as I can, so that’s what I keep doing. I get my joy out of doing that job well. So, for me personally, it’s more of just a nuisance to have to come over here and talk about this because I know what happened and it really doesn’t matter to me what other people say about it.”
What other people, including a lot of competitors in the NASCAR garage, have been saying is that they believe the Roush Fenway team intentionally let the oil tank lid come off to gain an aerodynamic advantage, estimated by several crew chiefs at between 100 and 170 pounds of additional downforce.
“It’s fine by me if folks want to get worked up about it,” Edwards said. “Then we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em. We’re just racing hard.”
Team owner Jack Roush has consistently denied any intent to cheat.
Now, the team’s attention turns to keeping its momentum going despite the distractions.
With Osborne back home in Charlotte, N.C., Chris Andrews, Roush Fenway’s chief engineer, has been overseeing the preparation of the No. 99 Ford at the track. Longtime Kenseth crew chief Robbie Reiser, Roush Fenway’s general manager since the end of last season, will call the race from Edwards’ pit box today.

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