Just weeks ago, the name Matt Kenseth was the only available substitute for '2009 Sprint Cup winner'.The Roush Fenway Racing driver picked up the Harley J. Earl Trophy for winning the rain-soaked Daytona 500 and followed it up a week later with a 'W' in the season's second race at Auto Club Speedway.
Since then, however, Kenseth has fallen through the standings at a clip rivaling a Ryan Newman qualifying lap.
The brutal drop from 1st to 12th in the standings happened quickly after the checkers and cheers that was ACS' victory lane. The No. 17 misfired badly in the very next race weekend with a 43rd-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway thanks to a blown motor just 34 laps into the race.
The Matt Kenseth we know, however, returned a week later at Atlanta Motor Speedway with a 12th-place run that is the trademark style of the consistent Cambridge, Wisc., driver.
The first Sprint Cup jaunt to the short tracks, though, didn't turn out so well.
Kenseth tallied up finishes of 33rd and 23rd at Bristol Motor Speedway and Martinsville Speedway, respectively. The lack of front-running performance was somewhat of a shock at Bristol for Kenseth on a personal level because he's got two career wins at the track -- including a dominating performance in 2005 where he led 415 of the 500 laps in the fall race.
On a team level, though, the Roush Fenway stable massively underperformed at the short tracks as a whole with just one car -- Jamie McMurray in 10th at Martinsville -- finding a Top-10 finish.
Kenseth's paced picked up again at the longtime Roush stronghold of Texas Motor Speedway with a fifth-place finish, but just last weekend at Phoenix, the dismal ways returned. Kenseth 27th after starting 17th.
"We had a really tough race last week," said Kenseth. "To be honest, we've been less than stellar since winning the first two races of the season. We have to get the cars running better and we have to be much more consistent on pit road to have a shot at making the Chase and competing this season."
Unfortunately, the Sprint Cup Series heads to Talladega Superspeedway this weekend, a place Kenseth lacks a solid record at. The No. 17 has averaged an 18th-place finish over the years, but in 18 races, he's led the field 13 times.
Naturally, the biggest obstacle to Kenseth's success at Talladega should be getting caught up in someone else's mess. Should he miss that, it's not entirely possible to rule out a solid finish thanks in part to his decent drafting skills. Kenseth did make a late pass for the win around Elliott Sadler at Daytona.
But Kenseth couldn't be more spot on in his assessment of the season. Sure, the first two races had a nice, positive ring to them, but getting into the Chase is going to require much better consistency from the No. 17 -- even for a team that has yet to miss the season-ending championship format.
