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StockCarFans.com – Rumblings – Rockingham:

February 23, 2004 at 12:00 AM
  • Since Matt Kenseth is one of the “Gillette Young Guns” we’ll say he won by a whisker! That close shave had to help, cause Kenseth won today’s Subway 400 at North Carolina Speedway by the whopping margin of .010 seconds over Kasey Kahne. With less than 10 laps to go it was up for grabs amongst the top-3, as Jamie McMurray had his chances as well. This was career win #8 for Kenseth (tying him with Kurt Busch and Kyle Petty for 52nd on the all-time win list), and #67 for Roush Racing. His second win at Rockingham (he won this race in February of ’02) was worth $222,303 for Kenseth from the over $4.7M in posted awards.
    It was all about where you were when the cautions fell today, and it’s apparent that NASCAR’s “no racing back to the caution” rule is still a work in progress. We saw two changes to Rusty Wallace’s pit crew for this race, and it certainly wouldn’t be a big surprise to see some more moves from that corner before we get to Vegas.
    Kasey Kahne (2nd) had his career-best finish today. He was 41st at Daytona last week in his debut.
    Jamie McMurray (3rd) had his best finish since he was 3rd at Bristol last August.
    Sterling Marlin (4th) had his best finish since he was 4th at Darlington in September of 2002!
    Rusty Wallace (7th) had his best finish since he was 6th at Loudon last September.
    Ward Burton (9th) had his best finish since he was 6th at Watkins Glen last August.
    Johnny Sauter (14th) had his best finish since he was 23rd at Loudon last July.
    Scott Riggs (31st) had his career-best finish today. He was 34th last week at Daytona in his debut.
    Andy Hillenburg (34th) had his best finish since he was 24th at Daytona in October of 1998 (only 4 races).
    Carl Long (38th) had his best finish since he was 29th at Lowes Motor Speedway in October of 2001 (only 5 races).
    STREAKIN….Jeff Gordon has 10 Top-10’s in the last 11 races. Matt Kenseth has 4 Top-10’s in the last 5 races.
    This Week’s Elevator….UP: Operator of the Week is a tie between Matt Kenseth (+22) and Johnny Sauter (+22). DOWN: The Big Dropper was Dale Jarrett (-31), followed by Jeff Green (-20).
    The big move forward in the standings this week goes to Jamie McMurray (36th to 11th), while Dave Blaney who didn’t compete this weekend fell from 15th to 37th. Of the competitors, Jimmie Johnson fell the most spots (5th to 25th)….unchartered territory for him.(StockCarFans.Com Nextel Cup Newsletter)(2-23-2004)