PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

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.”

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i'm with you there mrs...... i remember the 12 / 88 issue...... DJ is old school racer, and while he may not be at he top of his racing anymore (i hope i don't upset the DJ faithful, just calling it as i see it:-)) i think also that the 17 car better keep an eye out.... maybe both..... :-)

PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, is in fourth place in the points standings heading into this weekend’s race at Texas Motor Speedway. Kenseth, who has a victory (at California) and three top-fives through the first six races of the season, won at Texas in 2002.

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion –

THERE WASN’T MUCH PRACTICE TODAY. WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE RACE THIS WEEKEND?

“We didn’t get a whole bunch of practice in, just a little bit in race trim, we didn’t work on qualifying, so if we do qualify here it’ll kind of be a surprise here to all of us, what the car drives like. But the track had a lot of grip today, it was real cool, it seemed like everybody was handling pretty good. So, I don’t think we learned much today. I think, regardless of whether we qualify or not, I think tomorrow will be where we’ll probably learn a little more about the race and see how we stack up compared to our competition.”

THE YEAR TO DATE: WHAT DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT, AND WHAT DO FEEL HASN’T GONE AS WELL AS YOU WOULD’VE LIKED?

“The best things, a couple of things: our pit stops have been great; they’ve been more consistent this year than they were last year – we changed that group around a little bit and they’ve even gotten stronger. One of our stronger suits has been pit road this year. I feel good about being able to win a race, I feel good about finishing better than what we’ve been running. We haven’t really run as good as our finishes look like – and finishing better than you run is important to gather points, and that helps make up a lot of points that we lost. The other thing I don’t feel good about is we haven’t run as good the last three or four or five weeks as we need to to be a serious contender. We haven’t really been like them top few guys. But, we’ve got some work to do to get our stuff running better, but we have been finishing good.”

WHY NO REPEAT WINNER AT TEXAS IN 12 PREVIOUS RACES?

“I don’t really know. Part of it’s probably the track’s been reconfigured a couple times and repaved a couple of times, and when you do that it kind of opens it up to maybe somebody different hitting it just right that weekend, because the tracks’ kind of new to everybody. Other than that, I don’t really know, to be honest with you. I think some of it’s probably just the way things went down, probably, a little bit of a fluke or maybe a little bit of luck or whatever. So, there hasn’t been just one team that really got a hold of it and been able to do the things that Jimmie Johnson’s done to Charlotte and Vegas and stuff like that, nobody’s been able to do that yet. It doesn’t mean that won’t happen in the future, but certainly you could have another first-time winner this week; there’s a lot of great guys that haven’t won here yet. And next year I assume it’ll be a COT race and then that kind of opens up a whole new deal again, too. So, certainly, it could keep up for a while. Being one of the guys who have been able to win here, I hope it doesn’t, but it certainly could.”

WITH AN ONGOING DOMINANCE OF CHEVROLET AS A MANUFACTURER, DO YOU SEE YOURSELF AS THE MAIN ANCHOR FORD DRIVER? YOU SEEM TO BE THE MOST SUCCESS FORD DRIVER RECENTLY.

“I haven’t really thought about it like that. I guess if you look at last year, you look at the points, whatever, we had the best-running Ford, but I don’t really look at the manufacturer thing as much, I more look at the race-team thing and look at how we’ve got our stuff running compared to theirs.
“I don’t think these days there’s a big advantage or a disadvantage through the manufacturers. Somebody might have something a little bit better. Toyota might have a little bit better engine right now than everybody, or somebody might have a little bit of something – but, especially COT cars, they’re all as close to the same as you can get them. Even the car, whatever you want to call it, the car we’re racing today, are pretty similar. I don’t think aerowise there’s a big disadvantage or advantage for the makes. I think they’re all pretty equal.”

JUST AS A GROUP OF CARS, ARE THESE BIG CHEVROLET TEAMS THREATENING TO GET AWAY FROM EVERYBODY ELSE, THE FORDS AND ROUSH RACING, SPECIFICALLY?

“I don’t think so. Hendrick has four teams, we have five and it’ll be four soon. Like I say, the manufacturer thing, I don’t think’s a big deal. I think you could give Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson any make of car and they’d figure out how to win with it. I don’t think it’s really necessarily a manufacturer thing where they have a big advantage. Certainly, if you look at the numbers, there’s more Chevrolet teams – if there’s more cars in the field, they’re numbers are going to be better, so they’re going to have more good finishes, obviously, because there is more of them. But I still think it’s a team thing. We just have got to keep working on our stuff. We have the same opportunities everybody else does, same rules to work with, we’ve just got to work on it hard and get it figured out. Hendrick, they’ve always done a great job, and so has Gibbs and all them guys. But, it’s tough to keep up with them guys, and they did a good job with their COT stuff, they won the first two races, and we’ve been a little behind on that, so that’s just something we’ve got to keep working on and get it better.”

HOW IS THE STRENGTH OF ROUSH OVERALL?

“I think it’s pretty good. I think this year we have the potential to finish strong than what we had last year. When Jamie and Jimmy didn’t start off well together and they took Jimmy Fennig out of there and moved him to the Busch shop, that really hurt the organization a lot. They took Wally Brown, our engineer, and moved him to Carl’s crew chief, and took Carl’s crew chief away from him and gave him Jamie’s. It just mixed everything up, and it really hurt the engineering department. Having Jimmy away from the shop really hurt. And this year they’ve been able to get Chris Andrews come in to head up the engine department, get Jimmy back in there with David, and got Larry Carter with Jamie, which they’ve been working really great together. They mixed things up but we brought people in, you know, we didn’t rob Peter to pay Paul, and take somebody out of a department and make it weaker. And I think that’s what happened to us last year. We just took the people we had and moved them out of there and put them in different positions and weren’t able to finish strong. So I think this year we’ve got a lot better potential to keep developing, keep getting stronger as the year goes on, where last year we started off really strong and just kind of had a steady decline, in my opinion, and by the end of the year didn’t have what we needed to win with. So I’m hoping it’ll be the opposite this year, although we started fairly strong, but I’m hoping and I think that our performance should improve as we go on, should get caught up on some stuff, get caught up on the Car of Tomorrow and keep making it better, and get caught up on our current car and keep making it better for the end of the year. I have a hope that we’re fairly strong now but I have a hope that we’ll be stronger at the end of the year.”

HENDRICK IS GOING AFTER ITS FIFTH CONSECUTIVE VICTORY THIS WEEKEND. EVERYBODY IS SAYING PART OF THE REASON FOR THEIR SUCCESS IS THE SHARING OF INFORMATION. THAT ORGANIZATION HAS BEEN PRETTY CONSISTENT IN TERMS OF CREW CHIEFS; IS IT MORE DIFFICULT TO SHARE INFORMATION WHEN CREW CHIEFS ARE MOVING AROUND?

“We all share all of our information. We’ve always done that since right before Burton left, he kind of put it together and all the crew chiefs worked together and all the drivers worked together. We all know what’s in each other’s cars, so that’s all great, but sharing information is only as good as the information is to share. I mean, if we’re all running 15th and we’re sharing information, great, we’ve all got 15th-place information. You still have to be figuring stuff out and making it better, hoping one of the cars is one of the better cars out there that you can look at. So I think that’s the important thing: the quality of the information as much as it is sharing it obviously. When you’re running good and you’re sharing the stuff, but when you’re not you’ve got to go out and learn and figure it out together to get it figured out.”

AT ROUSH, HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN ANOTHER DRIVER’S SETUP AND WON A RACE, LIKE HENDRICK DID AT MARTINSVILLE?

“I don’t know if it’s ever worked exactly like that, but certainly we’ve used a lot of each other’s stuff through the years. And before the setups changed as much as they did, and aerodynamics became as important, we used to use each others’s stuff a lot more. When I first started there I used a lot of Jeff Burton’s stuff, and lot of Mark Martin’s stuff, and we’d put one of their setups and go start at the race track with one of their setups and work around it. We kind of figure dit out back then. If I could look at Kurt’s setup and he was running good, and then I looked at my setup, I knew there were two or three things I needed to be different than his setup to make my car drive like it needed to drive. We kind of got used to that, but as the years went on and people got mixed around and all this stuff has happened, it hasn’t been quite that easy. We’re still working on that. I think with the Car of Tomorrow you’ll be able to do that more than ever because the cars are so close to the same.”

WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE ANOTHER WEEK WITH THE COT OR ARE YOU GLAD TO BE BACK WITH THE OLD CAR AT A TRACK WITH WHICH YOU’RE FAMILIAR?

“As a driver who likes to drive fast and do all that, it’s more fun to get back in these cars because they feel more like race cars. They go faster, they have more downforce. That part is good. But when you’re all in the same car, it doesn’t matter. It’s fun to get in because you go out and go fast and it stuck to the track and do all that stuff, but by this time next year, the year after, we probably won’t give it a second thought. The cars will be the same again, and we’ll be racing the same thing. They’ll drive different that what we have today, but at that time we’ll all be in the same boat and we’ll be sued to it more.”

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO RACE WELL AT TEXAS?

“Just have a good-handling car. It flattens out off the corner, the transitions are real flat in and out of the corner, and to keep your car turning good enough without being too loose like anywhere else, it’s kind of the key. Lately the track has widened out, you’ve been able to run the top or the bottom, and I also think it’s important to have a car that’ll work in both grooves, you know, if you get tight behind somebody, if you can move up the track and get around the top just as fast as you’re getting around the bottom, that’s going to be a big help.”

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PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, is already in the Nextel All-Star Challenge and is a former winner, having taken the checkered flag in 2004. He spoke about the race after practice on Friday.

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion –

WHY DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THIS ALL-STAR RACE SO MUCH?

“It’s exciting. My favorite thing about it is it includes the team so much. The team is included every week, but they don’t necessarily get the recognition as much from the media or the fans. This is really big because they get introduced on the stage before with the driver, and there’s a pit stop during qualifying, which is a great thing for me with the way I qualify, so they’re just involved a lot more. They had the pit crew competition this week and that’s my favorite part about it because they get a lot more recognition than they usually would.”

ARE GUYS MORE AGGRESSIVE IN THAT RACE BECAUSE THERE ARE NO POINTS OR IS IT THE SAME AS EVERY WEEK WITH GUYS JUST RACING HARD?

“I would say they are a little bit more with guys trying to go a little bit more than what they think they can. They try to get that little bit extra all the time and that’s why you see a lot of accidents and a lot of action that you do see, so I think you’ll see a lot of that tomorrow, especially with this tire. It’s pretty tricky. It’s hard to catch it and hard to save it, so I think you’ll see a little bit of that.”

SO YOU MIGHT TRY TO GO FOR IT A LITTLE MORE TOMORROW AS OPPOSED TO JUST SETTLING FOR A GOOD POINTS DAY IF YOU’RE RUNNING UP FRONT?

“Yes and no. If you’re in a position to try to win the race, you’re gonna run as hard as you can to win that race, but yet if you’re running second and the guy in front of you is two-tenths faster and he’s driving away, there’s nothing you’re gonna do to make that up. You’ve got to be smart enough to do that because if you can’t win, there’s no sense wrecking. You want to still go try to win, but you don’t want to tear anything up for no reason either.”

YOU WERE PENALIZED AT THE START OF THE YEAR. WHAT WAS YOUR THOUGHT ABOUT THE 8 CAR PENALTY?

“I don’t know if everybody saw it and I didn’t read the whole thing, but when we showed up Bristol, NASCAR gave us all a bulletin and it basically said what the minimum fine was gonna be for any intentional cheating, or whatever you want to call it, with the COT car and that was the minimum fine -- $100,000 and 100 points and a suspension for the crew chief. We all had that actually in writing sitting on our desk at Bristol. I saw it on Robbie’s desk when we got there, so it’s not a surprise. That’s what they said their minimum penalty was gonna be for any of those type of infractions with that car.”

MORE ON THE PENALTY?

“I can’t comment on whether it’s necessary or not, I don’t know. I think if you’re NASCAR you have to do what you say you’re gonna do. That’s what they told us they were gonna do in writing before we ever ran that car, so I don’t think they really had a choice. I think it said that’s the minimum penalty, so if it says that’s what the minimum penalty is for intentionally messing with a certain spec part of that car, then that’s what they’ve got to do. How can you say a penalty is gonna be 100 points and fine you 50? I don’t know how you can do that.”

DO YOU FEEL ROUSH IS CLOSING THE GAP WITH THE COT?

“I think we’re getting closer. Do I think we’re there yet? No, we’re not as good as some of those other guys, but I think we’re getting a little closer and we’re working really hard at it.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE JOB NASCAR DOES OFFICIATING RACES?

“I think they do a good job of officiating races. I think certainly there are probably times during a race where it gets strung out and maybe they’re looking a little harder for debris than other times. If you scan them, you can hear that. They’re looking pretty hard to see if there’s something because, let’s face it, it probably is getting a little boring. We’ve got to realize that it’s a sport. I think they officiate it very fair. I think they make sure that they don’t have an outcome in the winners, but I think certainly we all realize it’s an entertainment business and they’re gonna try to make the races as entertaining as possible, just like trying to get the COT cars all as close as they can to the same. They want the racing to be close and they want it to be entertaining.”

DO YOU REALIZE THE FANS SEE THAT AS EVERYTIME THERE’S A CAUTION THAT GOES AGAINST YOU, THEY THINK IT’S BEING DONE TO HURT YOU?

“As a driver you always think that too. The first thing that happens is if you’re leading and there’s 10 to go and you see a caution you’re mad. You can come around and there could be 10 cars wrecked on the backstretch and you’re still like, ‘I can’t believe there’s a caution.’ That’s just human nature. Everybody is gonna think that. If it works against you, that’s the first thing you’re gonna think, and if it works for you, you probably won’t say much about it.”

IF IT HAPPENS IN A FOOTBALL GAME, THERE’S TWO SIDES AND YOU’RE EITHER FOR IT OR AGAINST IT. HERE THERE ARE 43 TEAMS OUT THERE.

“One thing we’ve got to remember too is that NASCAR has done a lot of work, especially in the last six or seven years, on safety. A lot of times it’s not uncommon at all when you listen to the scanners. If there’s somebody that needs a caution, they’re complaining about debris and NASCAR has got to listen to everybody. The guy who is leading is saying the track is clean and the guy running third is saying there’s debris all over the place. They’ve got to weigh all of that out and they’ve got to try to spot it themselves and, first of all, they’ve got to do what’s safe for everybody.”

IT’S ALL ABOUT PERSPECTIVE.

“Yeah, everybody’s got a different look at it.”

HOW DO YOU VIEW THE SEASON – AS A WHOLE OR 26 AND 10?

“I really take it week by week for our part of it, but I definitely try to keep track of developing stuff for the end of the year and making our stuff better so when we get to the end of the year we’ve got the best stuff available, but I just kind of take it one week at a time and give it your best every week. I can’t think of a week that we were like, ‘This week doesn’t matter. We’ll waste it.’ You want to do good every week.”

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This Week In Ford Racing: NNCS Driver Matt Kenseth
PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, maintained his third-place position in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings after a 12th-place finish in last weekend's Coca-Cola 600. Kenseth looks to gain in the standings on points leader Jeff Gordon on Sunday at one of his favorite race tracks - Dover International Speedway.

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion --

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON DOVER, ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU DIDN'T GET TO TEST THERE?

"We all would have liked to have had the test at Dover. That would have been the fastest track we'd have been to really with this COT car. We, as in Roush, and our team need as much testing as we can with that car and as much time as we can with it to try and get it sorted out, so certainly we would have liked to test there, but we couldn't really do anything about the weather."

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT DOVER?

"I love Dover. It's one of my favorite tracks to go to. It's real exciting. It's real challenging. It's real fast with high banks and it's pretty much got everything I like in a race track."

IS THERE AN ADJUSTMENT WHEN YOU GO FROM A RACE WITH THE CURRENT CAR TO A COT EVENT LIKE THIS STRETCH OF CHARLOTTE-DOVER-MICHIGAN?

"That's kind of what we're getting to. It's more of an adjustment to go to a car of tomorrow race. That's much more of an adjustment for us. Like when we go to Dover, things like that will be a lot different, but at places like Michigan and Charlotte, where we've run these cars forever, it's not really that much of an adjustment."

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PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, is in fourth place in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series points standings heading into this weekend's race in Sonoma (Calif.). He talks about running the Car of Tomorrow this weekend.

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion -

ON RACING A CAR OF TOMORROW ON A ROAD COURSE.

"I was kind of encouraged about our COT test. We went and ran Road Atlanta a little bit the other day, and I realize it was fresh pavement and it had a lot of grip, but our cars drove really good and actually drove better than our last year's car for the road courses, so I'm kind of looking forward to Sears Point - at least as much as I ever look forward to going there. I'm looking forward to having something different, having some different cars. And, we've never been able to - with me driving, for some reason - figure out our road-course cars very well, so I'm looking forward to trying something different and seeing how it turns out."

ARE YOU A FAN OF THE CAR OF TOMORROW, AND DO YOU LIKE THE WAY IT'S BEING INTRODUCED?

"Yeah, I think for next year you've got to go one way or another, and obviously if they're going to go to that car, and I think going to it exclusively is the right thing, but we're trying to get a little better with it. I wish they'd make the car somehow through the rules a little looser or harder to drive. If they're too tight, in my opinion, almost anybody can drive a tight car. You go in there and it won't turn behind somebody, there's nothing you're going to do as a driver to help 'em out. So, being hard to drive and slower, I'm all for that, I just wish they'd make a little looser and harder to drive so we could pass a little bit better. But, overall, I think everybody's getting the hang of the car, they're getting them a little bit better each race and the racing's been competitive, so I think it's been alright."

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Auto racing: Another Kenseth enters the fold
Tamira Madsen — 6/26/2007 10:03 am

Although his father is accustomed to the spotlight, third-generation driver Ross Kenseth is certain to generate his own share of attention tonight at Madison International Speedway.

Ross, the 14-year-old son of Cambridge native Matt Kenseth, will compete in a Legends race in his debut at the Town of Rutland track. The Legends event is scheduled to run after the 100-lap First Supply All-Star Challenge, which will feature Matt and fellow NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver Tony Stewart.

Compared to his father, Ross got an early start with his racing career. He won his first race at age 3 in a Big Wheel division at Wisconsin International Raceway, moved to kid go-karts, Big Stock class and the Burris Circle Tour. Ross, who resides in Spring Valley, Ill., with mother Lisa Winius, has competed in the INEX Legends for three years.

Matt struck a deal with his father Roy at 13 and worked on Roy's race cars for several years before getting behind the wheel of a Late Model car at 16.

Ross, who will be a high school freshman this fall, is beginning his own Limited Late Model career and already has driven in two races this season. He briefly grabbed the lead early in a Limited Late Model race Friday at Columbus 151 Speedway, but settled for a 10th-place finish.

Roy said his 5-foot-10 grandson is "taller than Matt already" and shows the potential to be a fierce on-track competitor.

"Matt has told me that Ross' driving resembles more of my style," Roy said. "I was a little more aggressive and Matt wasn't. We've got to rein him in a little bit. He's not passive, that's for sure.

"His personality, though, is a lot like Matt's. He's going to be a kid who is not going to be a showoff and not going to have a problem with ego. He's got enough good people around him to keep him that way."

The Legends event tonight will be a family affair, as Stewart's father Nelson, 69, also is expected to compete. That decision prompted a handful of race fans to inquire if Roy was going to get behind the wheel, too.

"I don't have time for that," Roy said. "I have to put out fires and have plenty to do. Tony's dad is a pretty cool guy and I think it will be fun watching Nelson and Ross in Legends."

Meanwhile, even after becoming a Nextel Cup star, Matt has regularly returned to Wisconsin to race, claiming Miller Lite Nationals victories at the quarter-mile Slinger Super Speedway in 2002 and 2006, as well as feature wins on the half-mile track at MIS in 2003 and 2004. He had poor performances at MIS in 2003 and 2004, with 25th- and 24-place efforts, and he notched a sixth-place finish at Kaukauna's Wisconsin International Raceway in 2005.

Roy said he anticipates a decent crowd will be on hand to see the All-Star Challenge event, the sixth race he's promoted at MIS with Matt as the featured driver. Matt, the 2003 NASCAR Cup champion, finished second to Mauston native Kelly Bires last June.

The race will be the second consecutive installment to showcase Tony Stewart, the 2002 and 2005 Cup champion. Stewart finished eighth last season at MIS.

Approximately 10,000 spectators packed the grandstands for last year's event, and while Roy expects strong walk-up ticket sales, he said a crowd of 8,000 to 9,000 will make him happy.

Much like Matt and Tony, Roy said he enjoys the opportunity to support short track racing at the local level.

"Their schedules are really tight, they're not getting paid and they're doing it for me as a favor," Roy said. "But they're not doing it for the money. When they go to the short tracks, they're doing it because they grew up in short track racing and they want to do see the short tracks survive.

"With my ticket orders, you'd be surprised how many people write a note and say, 'We're so happy you're doing this because we can't afford to go to a Cup race.' By doing this and helping, a lot of those spectators will come back on a Friday night."

Matt is set to return to the state for two other races this summer. He's scheduled to take part in the Miller Lite Nationals July 17 at Slinger Super Speedway and will compete in the Wisconsin All-Star 50 Super Late Model race Aug. 26 at The Milwaukee Mile.

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Really cool, Thanks for posting that Curves it's always good to read about drivers from my home state. I didn't know Matt had a son that old, How old was he when Ross was born? (If anyone knows).

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