Matt Kenseth still winless but takes over Sprint Cup points lead - MotorSportsTalk

A solid third-place finish on Sunday for Matt Kenseth enabled him to move to the top of the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings after previous leader Jeff Gordon faded late to a 15th-place result.

Going into next weekend’s Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway, Kenseth – who is still winless in 2014 – is up by by two points on Jeff Gordon (one win, Kansas) in the standings.

Kenseth wasn’t nearly as dominant on the day as eventual race winner Jimmie Johnson, but still had one more chance to catch him thanks to a late restart with four laps to go.

He lined up on the outside of Johnson for the restart, but spun the tires on his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota as Johnson went on to his ninth career win at Dover International Speedway.

“It was good, I mean, I thought the 48 (Johnson) and the 4 (Kevin Harvick) had us all day,” Kenseth said. “The 24 (Gordon) at times — all of the Hendrick cars were strong and Brad (Keselowski) got up there at the end.

“We had a good Top-5 car. I did an awful job on that last restart. Just got spinning the tires too much and the best car won. We just need to be a little bit better.”

Prior to that critical restart, Kenseth dodged a bullet on Lap 222, when rookie Alex Bowman hit the wall after a tire went down on him.

Coming up on the scene, Kenseth didn’t know if Bowman would slide down the track or stay up by the wall. In a split-second decision, Kenseth went high and narrowly squeezed through the wall and Bowman’s wounded Toyota.

“He blew a tire or something and I saw him blow a tire, and I was kind of running the middle and I didn’t know where he was going to go,” Kenseth said of the situation. “So I hit the brakes and locked up the left front (tire) and then I didn’t have any steering when the left front was locked up.

“Yeah, that would’ve looked pretty stupid to drive up and go through the back of him.”

Kenseth also survived a late run-in with Clint Bowyer after the aforementioned restart to give his team their eighth Top-10 finish in the last nine races.

Until Kenseth can break through for a win, he’ll need to stay as high up in the points as he can for now. But considering how consistent he’s been in the first half of the regular season, one figures that he’ll be taking a checkered flag soon enough.

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An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”