Kenseth will kick off his tenure in the No. 6 Ford at Kansas Speedway on May 12, the first time in his Cup Series career since going full time in 2000 that he won’t compete in the entire 36-race schedule.
He will also serve as a mentor for Roush Fenway Racing’s two other Cup Series drivers – Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – in addition to spending time at the race shop and helping the organization assess its progress when he’s not behind the wheel.
“It’s an interesting challenge for me, with not just being a driver. I hope I can be much more to the organization and I’m hoping that there are a lot of different ways I can help in that regard,” said Kenseth. “I don’t know that I can do a lot of those things, but I hope that I can and that’s kind of what I’m looking forward to.
“(The team) is fairly small right now – down to two teams and it’s leaner – but I feel like it’s on the right trajectory. I feel like there are a lot of advantages to where they are at right now, and I’m looking forward to getting in there and being a part of it and getting back immersed in the organization and hopefully evaluate some things, so we can hopefully continue projecting upward.”
Asked if he’s worried about returning to show other team owners what they passed up on, Kenseth’s wisdom and perspective since leaving the race car last year shone through in this response.
He’s not worried about making that kind of a statement. He’s focused on the team and its future.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. I don’t really feel like I have anything left to prove. I really don’t,” Kenseth stated.
“Obviously, every time you get in a race car and go to a race track you want to be your best and you go there with the idea of trying to win … and that’s never going to change as long as I drive. But this opportunity is as much about the rest of it – the rest of my role and possible future role – than it is just the driving. If it was just strictly about driving, I probably would have been at Daytona driving something. It’s more about coming here and trying to help and coming to see what the farther out future looks like for me – three, four, five years down the road, if it’s something I’m good at – and trying to help in the shop to just kind of see what it’s like.”
But Kenseth’s competitive fire is still burning as fiercely as ever, not just for himself, but for Roush Fenway Racing as a whole.
“I hope that it turns out to be true that I can help off the track as much as I do on it, so that it’s as much about that as it is driving the race cars,” Kenseth said. “But I’m really competitive with whatever I do, and if I’m not in the car, there’s nothing I want more than Ricky or Trevor to be out there running up front.
“This is about all of us improving and doing better and working hard as a team, and if we do all those things, hopefully we end up being successful at it. At the end of the day, that’s what I want, just like I know it’s what everyone on the team wants.”
