BRISTOL, Tenn. — After four rain delays and 11 extra laps, Matt Kenseth finally drove to victory lane.
It took him nine hours to get there Sunday at a water-logged Bristol Motor Speedway.
Kenseth snapped a 51-race losing streak by holding off Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson on one final restart in NASCAR’s determined effort to stage a complete race.
Kenseth, a seven-race winner in his 2013 debut season with Joe Gibbs Racing, was winless all last year.
“It feels good to be back here. Not winning for as long as we did … it wears on you a little bit,” Kenseth said. “We had such a good 2013, and last year there were some races we had some chances to win and just things wouldn’t line up for us.
“We just couldn’t get it to happen. (Bristol) was kind of the opposite. Everything worked out.”
The start was delayed nearly 90 minutes because of rain and the race was stopped three more times, including one delay that lasted almost four hours.
The final stoppage came when the race had already surpassed the scheduled 500 laps, but a quick rain shower had stalled NASCAR’s attempt to race to the checkered flag following an accident with eight laps remaining. So, NASCAR parked the cars on pit road and sent out its dryers to quickly try to give it one more shot.
Kenseth, the leader, was fine with NASCAR’s decision because he was so confident in his Toyota.
“I’ve got to be honest with you, at least 90 percent of the time or more, I’d be all about, `Man, call that thing,’ because anything can go wrong,” he said. “I felt pretty good about where we were. I felt like unless I really, really messed it up, I was going to be clear getting into (Turn) 1. I felt like our car was good enough to hold on for two laps.”
Thumbnail image via Andy Sartin/USA TODAY Sports Images
