Another Roush hour

Monday, March 3, 2003 | 11:30 a.m.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway officials are naming a new addition to the grandstands to honor the late Dale Earnhardt.

Perhaps they should consider naming Victory Lane in honor of Jack Roush.

Matt Kenseth gave the venerable NASCAR team owner his fourth victory in six Winston Cup races at LVMS by winning Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 before a sell-out crowd estimated at 140,000. Kenseth joined Mark Martin (1998) and Jeff Burton (1999 and 2000) as Roush's winners in Las Vegas.

"(My drivers) are really good at adapting to new race tracks," Roush said of his team's success on the 1.5-mile speedway. "This is a racetrack we've only been able to come to once a year so I think most drivers don't have a good book on what the race track requires.

"I think our guys are a little better than average on the new situation, plus I figured when we got here this time that everybody would have good enough information."

After watching the Chevrolets of Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Bobby Labonte, Michael Waltrip and Joe Nemechek ran up front for much of the first quarter of the race, Roush began wondering if his Las Vegas luck had run out.

"With the new Chevrolet and the new Pontiac (body styles), I figured it would be month of Sundays before we won another race here," said Roush, who fields five Fords in the Winston Cup Series. "But, thanks to Matt and (crew chief) Robbie (Reiser), they did good."

They did better than good. After a lightning-fast, green-flag pit stop with 39 laps remaining, Kenseth ran away from the pack and beat Earnhardt to the finish line by nearly half a lap.

The victory was the seventh of Kenseth's career and came on the heels of a five-win season last year and a second-place finish a week ago at North Carolina Speedway.

"It's just unbelievable," Kenseth said. "I can't believe the year we had last year and the start to this year we've had. It's just a huge confidence boost for our team."

Kenseth's team has won NASCAR's annual pit crew competition each of the past two seasons and, despite losing some crew members, showed no sign Sunday of falling off.

"As everybody knows, we had a little turnover in people," Kenseth said. "We've got a couple of new tire changers and a new tire carrier out there so the confidence for those guys is big.

"Last week, they were down on themselves because we didn't quite have the pit stop we wished we would have had at the end and it possibly could have taken us out of contention. This week, they won the race for me. If they wouldn't have gotten me out in front of (Earnhardt) and got that great pit stop on the last stop, who knows -- something might have happened and we might not have won."

Earnhardt, who led a race-high 97 laps, was not too disappointed with second place after opening the season with finishes of 36th and 33rd.

"I think it does a lot for my confidence and I think it does a lot for the team's," Earnhardt said. "We were happy and relieved all at the same time.

"We've just had a hell of a start to this year so it feels real good to be able to run good and be happy with what you've got at the end of the day."

Earnhardt led three Dale Earnhardt Inc. cars to top-10 finishes Sunday. Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip was third and Steve Park took 10th.

Waltrip, who has been come under criticism because all three of his Winston Cup victories have come in restrictor-plate races at Daytona International Speedway, celebrated a solid run by spinning out in the infield grass after the race.

"When you're a redneck, that grass is inviting," Waltrip joked. "I just wanted to go sliding through there -- I thought that would be pretty cool.

"It doesn't bother me that people say I've struggled (at non-restrictor-plate tracks) -- it bothers me that we kind of do. Like (Earnhardt) said, it's a big relief to put everything together and then come out here and run like we did. We threw all we had at it. We needed to perform and we did."

Labonte and Tony Stewart, both driving Chevrolets, rounded out the top five. Jeff Burton, Ryan Newman, defending race winner Sterling Marlin, Nemechek and Park finished sixth through tenth.

Las Vegas native Kurt Busch, who also drives for Roush, was the overwhelming pre-race favorite but finished 38th after getting caught up in a seven-car wreck 116 laps into the race.

The Winston Cup points leader going into the race, Busch slipped to sixth. Waltrip took over the points lead with his third-place finish.

Kenseth averaged 132.934 mph in a race that was slowed by seven caution flags for 30 laps. Although at least 10 drivers were involved in four separate incidents, none were injured.