Las Vegas — Matt Kenseth's win in Las Vegas certainly validated the entire DeWalt effort through the past several years.
Statistics show that Kenseth was a winning racer in 2002, when he posted the high-mark in wins in the series. And his winning the championship in 2003 simply reinforces the notion that the combination of Robby Reiser and Kenseth are likely the stoutest combination of driver and crew chief in the sport today.
But Kenseth won only one race on the way to his team's championship in 2003, something that was considered when the Chase for the Championship was introduced as the new system for determining the NASCAR Cup champion; and all due, in part, to Kenseth's perceived vanilla approach to his accomplishment of ‘03.
There's been talk from the Ford men of late, pointing to a car that was totally maxed-out in regards to aerodynamics when it started the 2003 season, given its older design. The Taurus, essentially unchanged since 1997, certainly was not the best car on the track in ’03; and yet Kenseth won the championship with it.
It's difficult to argue the parity formula now, given the results of qualifying and the race outcomes so far in 2004. But that's not stopping those in the GM camp from quietly lobbying the sanctioning body for a new nose for their one-year old Monte Carlo. The very same nose that led to a near panic in ‘03 when it's odd shape seemed to give the Monte a lot of bang for the buck.
The Monte is also the car that took a series high 19 wins in ‘03, all as the Dodge worked hard at their nine wins, the Ford fought for its seven wins and Pontiac won once.
"Last year there was a lot said about if we won the championship in style or if we backed into it," championship car owner Jack Roush said after the Vegas win.
"We didn't have much to work with last year," Roush continued. "The Taurus - we got our templates for our Taurus in 1997. In the meantime, the only consideration we've gotten since '97 was to revise the front air dam by one inch.
"In the meantime, the Chevrolet had been improved three inches and had gotten two body revisions and two sets of templates. After that the Chrysler had gotten a new front end in addition to having a chance to work on our car for 18 months before they submitted their original Dodge set of templates.
"In 2004 we have the first chance to get meaningful improvement to our car since '97," continued Roush about the new '04 Taurus' qualities. "When we started last year, the engineers and aerodynamicists and the shock folks knew everything about that car. It was optimized when we started the year and we did do very well with the car early in the year, before everybody else figured out how to use their new Dodge nose, use their new Pontiac and their new Chevrolet.
"Toward the end of the year, we were dead meat," admitted Roush of the long in the tooth '03 Taurus. "At different times when some people didn't understand that I would hold my nose to get through the year - take the abuse we would get for looking like we were not racing hard and wait for a new set of templates that would give us a chance to catch up.
"We've got an aerodynamically equal car, as far as I know, as it relates to drag and downforce," Roush concludes of the '04 Ford.
It's difficult to argue with Roush. And both Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson proved the point nicely in Vegas that it takes more than a car to win a race. It's the whole package in this highly competitive day and age — something that only plays into the hands of the Ford teams.
