Kenseth hopes to stabilize his standing

~ The 2003 series champion remains in second place after back-to-back 14th-place finishes.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Matt Kenseth has been entrenched in NASCAR's top 10 all season, holding strong in second place the last nine weeks.

Despite the solid footing, Kenseth in no way considers himself a lock to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup. With only six races left to ensure a spot in the playoff field, Kenseth can either play it safe and ease his way in or run hard and risk blowing it all.

For Kenseth, the strategy is a no-brainer.

"Everybody races every week to win -- that's what it's all about," he said. "Every time I look at it, you get the most points for leading the most laps and winning. So that's what you try to do each week."

He'll stick to that plan in Sunday's race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a track that has been fairly good to Kenseth over the years. Although he's never won here, Kenseth has three top-five finishes and was second in 2003 -- the same year he won his only NASCAR championship.

If this is the year Kenseth finally gets to kiss the bricks, he and his Roush Racing team will have to turn it up a notch.

Although he's been decent most of the year -- with two victories and 11 top-10 finishes -- Kenseth has been in a mini-slump of late with just one top-10 in the past six races.

"I'm happy when we're consistently in the top five. I'm not happy when we're consistently 14th like we were the last couple of weeks," he said. "We have had a few weeks where we've been off and made some mistakes and got taken out of a race, and just didn't really run that good at Pocono."

Despite the rash of mediocrity, Kenseth hasn't lost much ground in the standings and trails leader Jimmie Johnson by 97 points.

But he knows that could change with a slip of the steering wheel or a broken car part, and points to Dale Earnhardt's recent free-fall as evidence that no one is safe. Earnhardt plummeted from third to 11th in the standings with consecutive last-place finishes.

"I don't think we're really locked into the Chase," he said. "You've seen what happened to Junior a couple of weeks ago and how fast things can change, so I need to make sure we keep doing our job and try to operate at a championship level and hopefully gain some points on [Johnson]."

Still, Kenseth is in a completely different position than last year, when he needed a strong summer surge to sneak his way into the Chase. It came at a time when all five Roush Racing cars were dominating and the entire fleet made the Chase.

But only Kenseth has been consistently strong this season.

Greg Biffle, last year's runner-up to champion Tony Stewart, is currently 12th and trying to race his way into the Chase. Third-place finisher Carl Edwards needs a miracle to make it in. Jamie McMurray, in his first season with the team, is having a horrendous year.

That's left Kenseth and Mark Martin as the only legitimate contenders as the team tries to figure out the falloff.

"Our stuff was superior last year and our stuff is real good this year, but it's not superior as it was last year," said Martin, who is sixth in the standings. "If we want to have a great showing, we have to be a little bit more on target than we did last year."

The drop-off in equipment and Kenseth's back-to-back 14th-place finishes have him now questioning what the rest of the season will hold for him. Although many consider him the top contender to chase down Johnson, Kenseth knows its going to take a super effort from the No. 17 team.

"I felt really good about the whole season, but the last few weeks we've lost a little momentum, which I think is very important to get back before the Chase," he said. "But up to that point, we've been leading laps, we've been up front, and we've had a lot of top fives.

"I think we need to step it back up a notch before the Chase starts. It's a long season. There's a lot of racing through the end of the year, so we've got to figure out how to keep this thing rolling."