End Of The Chase Road Already For Biffle, Stewart, Kenseth?

One mistake by Matt Kenseth served as a big blow to the Chase chances of two Roush Fenway Racing cars.

When Kenseth tried to pit under green and slammed on the brakes – ultimately missing pit road – he flat-spotted his left-front tire and caused it to blow out.

At the same time, teammate Greg Biffle was on pit road and suddenly found himself trapped two laps down.

“It’s 100 percent my fault,” Kenseth said. “I just got in there too hard and it locked the left-front up. I tried to go around and the tire blew out.”

Said BIffle: “We were running on the lead lap and I thought we were a top-10 car.”

Instead, he was a 19th-place car. Kenseth was 18th. It was major setback for the Roush drivers’ chances of winning the Sprint Cup title this season.

“That probably right there was kind of our Chase hopes,” Biffle said. “We’re not out of it, but those two finishes are not a way to start the Chase off.”

Biffle and Kenseth are among four Chase drivers who are already more than 100 points behind leader Denny Hamlin.

Biffle (ninth) is 140 points back, followed by Tony Stewart (-162), Kenseth (-165) and Bowyer (-235). The chances any of those drivers could overcome a deficit after two races is small.

“To be honest with you, there was a lot of pressure here,” Kenseth said. “This is probably the only track we’ve run worth a darn at in about four or five months, so there was a lot of pressure to try and get a good finish out of here and we couldn’t get it.

“I thought we were gonna have a top-five-to-seventh-place car if I didn’t mess it up, and I messed it up.”

As for Stewart, a poor decision to take two tires early in the race and a pit-road speeding penalty cost the team. He finished 21st, with only Bowyer (25th) among the Chase drivers who were worse.