Kenseth Plays Down Poor Start

The 2003 champion lies 124 points behind Jimmie Johnson after a cut front tyre sent him into the wall and into retirement at last weekend's Dover race.

However, Kenseth takes strength from Johnson's dramatic recovery last season, when he was 247 points behind eventual champion Kurt Busch but won four of the final six races to only finish eight behind.

"We have a chance,"  Kenseth said. "But everybody in the top 10 has a chance. 
Right now, we're only two weeks in and there is a lot of racing to do and anything can happen. 

"And you know, you saw Jimmie Johnson last year.  He was way, way out of it and won a whole bunch of races at the end and came real close, right down to the last lap at Homestead, and anything is still possible.

"Just because we had one bad week, performance has been good and we have been running pretty good and I think we can get back in it."

However, Kenseth is not looking forward to this weekend's final restrictor plate race of the year at Talladega, where he believes he will have little control over where he finishes.

"Talladega is a track where you are pretty much a passenger," Kenseth added. "There are things you can do during the race, you can get some help drafting, you can make different decisions during the race that certainly affect the outcome, but that place is, you know, 90 per cent about the race car.

"You are kind of at the mercy of everybody else and what happens out there and you are always looking for that wreck."