Kenseth looks to avoid drop-off

TAMPA — To Matt Kenseth, his Daytona 500 victory last year "seems like so long ago" because of what happened afterward. Kenseth, NASCAR's 2003 Cup champion, won the first two races last season but struggled the rest of the way, failing to make the Chase for the Championship for the first time.

With Daytona a month away, Kenseth, 37, made an appearance Thursday at Busch Gardens to talk about his roller-coaster 2009 season. Kenseth, a Cambridge, Wis., native, didn't ride any coasters ("I don't like heights"), but he did win a tug-of-war with a tiger ("I think he was just messing with me").

How did you celebrate winning the Daytona 500?

It was almost like winning the championship, the three-day tour we went on, how many people showed up. We went to San Francisco, rode the trolley. It surprised me … how many people actually showed up, watched the race, knew we won, knew we were coming. I knew it was the biggest race, but it just surprised me a little bit how important it was.

What went wrong last year?

I look back at the whole season, look at our whole organization, I almost kind of ask the other way around, "What went right the first two weeks?" Because the whole rest of the season for our whole organization, for Greg (Biffle) and Carl (Edwards) to go winless when those two combined for 11 wins the year before, something was wrong within the organization; the way we were building cars or putting cars together. … The main problem was our cars just weren't fast enough. Even if we made a mistake or got behind or I messed up something or got off an adjustment, our cars were never fast enough to rebound from any of that.

How long do you want to continue racing?

The goal is to be competitive all the time and do it as long as you want; to do it on your terms, that would be your goal. Not too many people get to do that anymore. It's competitive; really hard when you have a couple down years. It doesn't really matter what you've done in the past, people are going to look at what you're doing now. … Ten years ago I think most experienced veterans could race as long as they wanted to. It's not really that way anymore.

How much of an adjustment was it with a new crew chief last year (Drew Blickensderfer) and how can you build off it?

I think we've learned what makes each other tick. … So I think it'll be a better year. I think we'll both have a little bit more of a comfort level with each other and how we like to run things.