Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Kenseth: Changes helped LVMS race

Friday, March 12, 2004 | 10:02 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

In the wake of last weekend's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, reaction was mixed on whether NASCAR's new tire and rear spoiler combination improved the caliber of racing at intermediate tracks.

If you were in the grandstands or watching the race on TV, you might have thought you were watching a rerun of last year's race as Matt Kenseth broke away from the rest of the pack in the closing laps.

If you were sitting behind the wheel of one of the 3,400-pound Nextel Cup cars, however, you might have come away with a completely different opinion.

"I love the new tire and the shorter spoiler already at Las Vegas," Kenseth said after posting his second consecutive win of the season. "I think you have seen a lot better race.

"I heard a couple of people say, and there are couple of articles, I guess, that they said they didn't think the racing was much better than what it was in the past ... but you are not going to see a Daytona or Talladega race anywhere except for Daytona and Talladega because we run the restrictor plates and run wide open and you can't get away from each other."

What the new tire/spoiler package did was allow faster cars to makes passes, especially for the lead, without being hampered by the dreaded aero push -- a phenomenon where the air coming off the lead car affects the handling of a trailing car. Sunday's race at LVMS featured six on-track passes for the lead while last year's race had only one.

That fact was not lost on Kenseth.

"I thought the best thing was the faster cars were able to pass the other cars and get to the front," Kenseth said. "Well, last year you could gamble and not get tires and stay out front for fuel mileage and even if the car behind you was faster, they could not get around you because you have an aero push and this year we do not have that nearly as bad.

"We are always going to have a little bit of aero push when somebody is front of you, but I don't think it was nearly as a bad. So I thought that the racing was really great -- I thought it was positive direction. You had to work on your car setup a lot more than I think what you had with those other tires and you had to do some tire management along the way -- even at a racetrack like Vegas and I thought, as a driver, that was lot of fun and real encouraging."

HAT TRICK? Although Kenseth said he has plenty of confidence heading into Sunday's Golden Corral 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, he wasn't about to predict a third consecutive victory on the season.

"You never know; in a 500-mile race in Atlanta, a lot of things can go wrong," said Kenseth, whose best finish in eight career starts at Atlanta was fourth (twice). "It's usually a good track for us and we've got a lot of momentum right now.

"It's hard to win any races and to win two in a row is pretty awesome. You just never know, but I feel good going to Atlanta."

The Performance Racing Network, which broadcast last weekend's race from Las Vegas, announced it would begin broadcasting races using a 7-second delay. PRN is covering Sunday's Nextel Cup race from Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Two pre-race favorites who did not test here -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Ryan Newman -- probably wish they had. Earnhardt made several trips to the garage in an attempt to fix an ill-handling car and dropped out after completing 196 of 267 laps while Newman spun out early in the race and finished 27th -- two laps off the pace.

The new team, called PKV Racing, will field a two-car team with Vasser and Roberto Gonzalez as the drivers and NII (formerly Nextel International) as the sponsor. Vasser, the 1996 CART champion, is an owner in the team with series owner Kevin Kalkhoven and high-tech industrialist Dan Pettit.

Team owner and driver Adrian Fernandez said he would make his IRL debut in the Indy 200 Copper World Classic at Phoenix International Raceway on March 21. Fernandez will drive a Honda-powered G Force.

"Obviously, this is a big move for us -- particularly at this late stage," Fernandez said. "We have reviewed a lot of things the past few days and had to take a hard look at what we know at this point in time to determine what is best for our sponsors and the future of Fernandez Racing. With the support of (our sponsors), we have made the decision to enter the IRL."

Fernandez had operated his own team in the Champ Car series for three seasons and had driven full time in the series since 1994.

"Personally, it is never easy to make a decision like this, particularly when you factor in the friendships and relationships that have developed over many years for not only myself but everyone at Fernandez Racing," Fernandez said.

Super Aguri Fernandez Racing entered the IndyCar Series in 2003 and fields an entry for rookie Kosuke Matsuura. Fernandez will race under the Fernandez Racing banner.

The Orleans Hotel and Casino USAC Sprint Car and Midget Nationals will; feature 40-lap main events for Sprint Cars and Midgets and a 25-lap main for the Ford Focus Midgets.