Top 20 Countdown: No. 10 Matt Kenseth
(Getty Images)
2009 statistics
Finish | Poles | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
14 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 12 |
The countdown
No. 20: Martin Truex Jr. | Career stats
No. 19: Brian Vickers | Career stats
No. 18: Kasey Kahne | Career stats
No. 17: Clint Bowyer | Career stats
No. 16: David Reutimann | Career stats
No. 15: Kevin Harvick | Career stats
No. 14: Ryan Newman | Career stats
No. 13: Greg Biffle | Career stats
No. 12: Dale Earnhardt Jr. | Career stats
No. 11: Jeff Burton | Career stats
No. 10: Matt Kenseth | Career stats
No. 9: Revealed Jan. 26
Editor's note: Yahoo! Sports is counting down the top 20 drivers of the 2010 season. The order was determined by a survey, which asked five NASCAR journalists – Jay Busbee and Jay Hart (Yahoo! Sports); Jenna Fryer (Associated Press); Dustin Long (Landmark Newspapers); and Nate Ryan (USA Today) – to predict the final standings for the 2010 season. The countdown will conclude on Feb. 5 with the unveiling of the No. 1 driver.
2009 finish: 14th
Our 2010 predictions:
• Jay Busbee: 16th
• Jay Hart: 11th
• Jenna Fryer: 8th
• Dustin Long: 14th
• Nate Ryan: 9th
Outlook for 2010: Kenseth can't possibly hope for a better start to a season than he had in 2009 when he won the first two races of the year. But he'd be more than happy to forget the rest of the year – a long, slow slide which ended with him missing the Chase for the first time since its inception in 2004.
Never a dominator and always a grinder – he's won more than two races in a season only twice in his 10-year Cup career – Kenseth butters his bread with top 10 after top 10. This approach has enabled him to finish in the top 10 in six of the last eight seasons.
For him to get back into Chase contention, the key will be to grind at a higher level. In the seven races leading up to the Chase, he finished between 10th and 14th in six of them. While it's a reliable run, it's no way to make up ground when you're trying to get back in the playoff hunt. He'll also need to improve his qualifying; he averaged a starting position of 21st, which put him in the tall grass each week from the moment the green flag dropped.
Kenseth obviously has the talent to run in the front of the pack; there aren't many current full-time drivers with both a Daytona 500 trophy and a Sprint Cup championship – three to be exact: Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. And consistency obviously isn't an issue with Kenseth, either. But perhaps taking a few more chances, a few more risks, will pay off in more single-digit finishes.
What you need to know: For 2010, the familiar No. 17 will be running with an unfamiliar sponsor. DeWalt, which had sponsored Kenseth for nearly a decade, ended its affiliation with the 17 at the end of last season. But Daytona 500 winners rarely have trouble finding sponsorship, and Kenseth picked up Crown Royal's regal purple. Crown Royal had previously sponsored Jamie McMurray until he became a casualty of NASCAR's four-team limit.
