If he had to do it over again, Matt Kenseth might have stayed in line in front of Martin Truex Jr., rather than moving up the track to try to block Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin.
But Kenseth had to make a split-second decision, and he moved into the outside lane in the final corner of Sunday’s Daytona 500. But Hamlin dived to the inside, and Kenseth nearly wrecked before regaining control of his car.
Hamlin went on to win the race, and Kenseth, who had led for most of the final lap rolled home in 14th.
“There’s a million things you could do differently, but I did what I thought I should do at the time to try to win,” Kenseth said. “We finished terrible, but that was the move I thought I had to make to try to preserve the win. He (Hamlin) had such a big run, he was going to go right around me in my opinion anyway, and Turn 4 was treacherous on the bottom.
“I didn’t think we were in a good spot to try to win it with his run, so I was trying to get in front of him. Unfortunately, his run happened pretty late in the straightway and he had the whole width of the corner to make a move, and he was able to cross back over and get under me.
