Matt Kenseth from Martinsville on Fumes, Foam and Fines
March 30, 2007
Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, is fourth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings – the highest among all Ford drivers. Kenseth held a Q&A session prior to Friday’s qualifying session at Martinsville Speedway. Below are some highlights from that session.
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS WEEKENKD? “This is probably my worst track on the circuit. This one is always a struggle for me and, certainly, today has been no different so far. We’ve got a lot of work to do to be competitive.”
WAS NASCAR FAIR TO ROUSH FENWAY WHEN THEY INTIMATED A PENALTY MIGHT BE COMING? “I don’t know a whole lot about it, to be totally honest with you. I did understand that they were gonna take some cars back to the R&D Center after the race. I don’t know, but I think they were gonna take the 99, but he was too much damaged so they decided to take the 16 I guess, but I don’t really know more than that.”
DID YOU HAVE SOME EXHAUST ISSUES LAST WEEK? “I had major problems last week. I shouldn’t say this because I’m not sure on it, but I think there are two different foams for the door and I think ours was toxic, so I have actually not been feeling very good this week. NASCAR had a meeting this morning and said that we burned up foam and that door plate and we didn’t have it installed properly, which isn’t true. We did have it installed properly the way it was supposed to be and we burned our door foam all the way 15 inches up. Half of our door foam was burned up and we had a hole in the carbon fiber and I had to breathe that stuff all day, so that’s definitely a big concern for me, especially this week and in the future as we get in the cars with right-side windows. That stuff burning, I don’t care what they say, whenever you make something man-made like foam and all that stuff, when that stuff melts and burns I know the fumes and smoke coming off that can’t be good for you. Robbie told me there are two different kinds of foams, but they obviously tell us what we’ve got to run and where we run it, so they didn’t make any rules changes this week. I was hoping they would do something a little different and at least look at it. We called and told them we had the problem, but, really, nobody came over. Actually, Greg was at a meeting while I was testing in Richmond and he took all the pieces from my car and he brought them over to NASCAR themselves to try to get them to look at it and do something, so I’m sure they’re gonna look into it and see what kind of problems there is, but certainly anything that’s burning inside the car that you have to breathe these days with all the chemicals and stuff out there is a big concern.”
DID YOU TALK TO DALE JARRETT ABOUT LAST WEEK? “No, I haven’t talked to him. I saw his comments. Whenever you get wrecked, no matter what you’re gonna get mad. I don’t know how he sees it this week to be honest with you because I haven’t talked to him. If I would have run into the back of him, I would have called him right away and talked to him about it, but I tried to pass him five or six times and that time I had three or four feet underneath him and that was my spot, so I didn’t feel I did anything wrong. I was in my spot, which was underneath him, and he came down into my lane and spun himself out, so I don’t really feel like I was at fault in the incident, and I didn’t see a big need to seek him out. I was in there a long ways farther than a lot of people were at Bristol and didn’t lift. I was in there a long ways and couldn’t get out of there."
