Kenseth found his groove a year ago at Michigan

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- More than halfway to the 2006 Chase for the Nextel Cup championship, any NASCAR driver close to elimination from playoff contention can look to Matt Kenseth for inspiration.

A year ago, Kenseth arrived at Michigan International Speedway 24th in the standings after the first 14 races, 700 points behind series leader Jimmie Johnson and 320 points from 10th-place Tony Stewart.

The 10-race Chase includes the top 10 drivers in the standings and any others able to remain within 400 points of the leader after the first 26 races of the year. But only the top 10 have made it in the first two years of the Chase.

When the Richmond race was done last September, Kenseth was eighth in the points and solidly in the playoff. The 2003 series champion went on to finish seventh in the standings -- not as good as he had hoped, but a lot better than things looked in June.

The intervening year has changed a lot for the Roush Racing driver. He heads into today's 3M Performance 400 second to Johnson, trailing the leader by just 48 points.

"Looking back on it, I can say I'm definitely glad we've started 2006 the way we have," Kenseth said, smiling. "The first 14 or so races of 2005 were not a lot of fun.

"I wasn't sure we could make the Chase, but we all knew what it would take. The problem was, up until that point, we really hadn't been competitive all year, with the exception of a couple of races. We couldn't afford any more mistakes, and luckily, we didn't make too many more before the Chase."

The charge began with a solid fourth-place finish on Michigan's 2-mile oval, which has been very good to Kenseth. He won here in June 2002, finished 11th that August and has six consecutive top 10s since.

Greg Biffle, Kenseth's teammate and the defending champ in Sunday's race, doesn't need a big charge to get into the top 10, but he does need to find some consistency.

Last year's series runner-up got off to a terrible start this season, but is now up to 12th and has closed the gap on 10th-place Kyle Busch to 27 points.

Biffle is quick to point out that drivers can move down the standings just as quickly as you can move up.

Eighth-place Kevin Harvick is separated from 13th-place Carl Edwards, another Roush driver, by 168 points.

"Eighth through 13th are pretty tough guys," Biffle said. "We're just going to work our hardest and see what we can do with them."

Besides the points race, the focus today also will be on Bill Lester, the first black driver to compete in the Cup series since Willy T. Ribbs ran three races in 1986.

Lester made his Cup debut in March at Atlanta, qualifying 19th and finishing 38th, six laps off the pace of race winner Kasey Kahne, who starts from the pole today.

Lester qualified 34th this time.