CONCORD, N.C. — Matt Kenseth took a long road to his runner-up finish on Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Still, the finish puts him in good points position in the second round of NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup.
MORE: Full results: Johnson wins at Charlotte
Kenseth started from the rear of the field after a penalty for an unapproved prerace adjustment. Then he served a penalty after his pit stop during the competition caution on Lap 25 for having too many men over the wall.
So he found himself battling back through traffic more than once.
"We didn't make it easy," he said. "We had to go to the back, so we had a part go bad in inspection or something, and then we got our way worked up there a little bit and then got that pit road penalty and went to the back again.
"It was an uphill battle, but [crew chief Jason Ratcliff] made some great adjustments, had some good pit stops, a great pit stop when we needed there at the end to put us in position to try to go for a win."
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And that he was, finishing second in a race in which several championship contenders faltered.
Kenseth seemed surprised that that came at Charlotte, a track that he says has generally been tough on his championship hopes — so he was pleased to emerge without losing too much ground.
He was pleased that he and his team could fight back in the race.
"Honestly, last two years in a row pretty much Charlotte has kind of taken us out of the Chase — mostly my doing, different things happening the last couple years here — so had a lot of problems last year, this year we had a lot of problems again, but we were able to kind of rebound from them and just kind of take our time," he said. "We knew it was a long day and they had good pit stops, good strategy and got us back where we needed to be there at the end."
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In a race where attrition was high among Chase drivers, Kenseth said he was only aware of where Jimmie Johnson — who won — finished in addition to his own performance.
"We had a pretty good three or four weeks, so hopefully we'll just keep that up," he said.
One race into the three-race elimination round, Kenseth is second in the standings, five points behind Johnson. There are two races remaining in this segment — at Kansas and Talladega — before the field is cut to eight drivers. Johnson, by virtue of his win on Sunday, is the only driver locked into the next round.
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While he obviously would have liked having the victory, Kenseth knew that he dodged the setbacks that many of his contenders could not.
"We'd love to have the win, make you feel better about the next two weeks, yet it was a solid run," he said. "We were able to have avoid the trouble they had in the frontstretch and work our way toward the front, had a good competitive car, so it was a good day."
Was there anything else he could have done on that late restarts in order to challenge Johnson for the win? Kenseth just didn't think so.
"Nope," he said. "That was all I had on the restart, and after he got in front of me, that was all I had. Every lap, I think I hit it every lap except for one time I missed (Turn) 3 a little bit. I just didn't have that kind of speed."