Motor Sports

Bumped Up
Though knocked out of a likely win at Bristol by Kurt Busch, former Cup champ Matt Kenseth grabbed the points lead

Walking briskly, Matt Kenseth climbed the steep banking of Turn 3 at Bristol Motor Speedway, nestled into the rolling hills of Tennessee's Thunder Valley, and headed toward the portal that would lead him out of the track. High above him in the twilight hundreds of fans were loitering in the stands an hour after the finish of Sunday's Food City 500. When one spotted Kenseth leaving the speedway, he hailed the driver with a chant of "You're Number 1!"--which, for the first time since Kenseth won the Cup championship in 2003, he now is.

"Our team and our cars are better now than in 2003," said the 33-year-old Kenseth, as he hurried under the grandstand to the parking lot. "We're on a nice little roll right now."

By finishing third at Bristol behind winner Kurt Busch and runner-up Kevin Harvick--two drivers currently engaged in an old-school NASCAR feud (box)--Kenseth bumped Jimmie Johnson from atop in the Nextel Cup point standings. Five races into the 2006 season Kenseth holds an eight-point advantage over Kasey Kahne and has a 19-point cushion on Johnson. Kenseth appeared to be cruising to Victory Lane on Sunday as he led 85 of the final 90 laps, but with four laps remaining Busch used a classic Bristol bump-and-run to bang past Kenseth on the back straightaway, nearly sending Kenseth's Ford into the wall. Upset at Busch and trying too hard to make up ground, Kenseth, one of the cleanest racers in the sport, ended up spinning out Jeff Gordon on the last lap, dropping Gordon from third to 21st. Kenseth tried to apologize to Gordon on pit road moments after the race, but Gordon wasn't in a forgiving mood: He lunged at Kenseth and pushed him backward. It was one of the few times all year that Kenseth has been knocked off balance at the track.

Last year Kenseth and his crew were uncharacteristically inconsistent. They started slowly (finishing 26th or worse in five of the first 10 races), came on strong in the middle of the summer to narrowly qualify for the Chase, then struggled over the last two months to wind up seventh in the final standings. Kenseth's crew chief, Robbie Reiser, says he now knows what was wrong last year. "My dad had cancer, and that took a big toll on both Matt and me," Reiser said late Sunday night.

Kenseth and Reiser grew up racing against each other on the short tracks of Wisconsin. The two boys were bitter rivals when racing, but their families became close away from the track. In 1997 Reiser, who by then was piloting a Busch Series car he owned with his father, John, stepped out of the driver's seat to become the crew chief; he turned the wheel over to Kenseth. Three years after that Roush Racing signed the Wisconsin duo.

John Reiser died from prostate cancer the day before the season finale last year. When Kenseth won at California Speedway earlier this season, the first words out of his mouth in Victory Lane were a tribute to Reiser's dad, thanking him for all that he'd done for his career. "Last season was the hardest one that Matt and I have ever been through together," says Reiser. "But we've had to move on. We're totally rededicated, and it's showing on the track."

Bristlin' at Bristol

While Kurt Busch made asphalt angels on the track after winning Sunday's race at frigid Bristol, runner-up Kevin Harvick (right) sat on pit road and said exactly how he feels about Busch, with whom he has been bickering since they were rookies in 2001. "I hate to see Kurt Busch win," said Harvick. "What a whiner."

Over the years Harvick has called Busch an "Opie kind of pansy," an "arrogant punk" and last Friday said he'd like to "whip his ass." Busch has never publicly called Harvick names, but he did use several four-letter words when talking about Harvick over his radio during a race in Atlanta on March 20.