Kenseth

The comments were surprising only because of whom they came from -- Matt Kenseth.

The fourth-year driver is a mild-mannered man of few words. The guy who punches in, goes to work and punches out. He gets the job done, but he doesn't stir the pot.

Then, late last year, he had to get something off his chest. He told NASCAR.com he was a little irked that Dale Earnhardt Jr. got so much more attention than him -- despite the fact Kenseth beat Junior for Rookie of the Year honors in 2000 and won three more races than Earnhardt did in 2002.

In 2003, Kenseth continues to outrun his classmate on the track, even if Junior continues to leave him in the dust off of it.

"I did an appearance (one) night, and I heard them talking all about how Dale Jr. ran out of gas and what a shame it was, and how he had the fastest car and should have won," Kenseth said last November.

"Well, you know what, we ran out of gas (that day), too, and I left him, passed him and outran him by a whole straightaway. If he was leading with 10 laps to go and ran out of gas and we got the win, sure, I'll say that (he was better). But that didn't happen.

"We ran out of gas after him. I restarted two cars behind him, too, so we raced all the way to the final pit stop. We ran good, too, and no one seemed to notice it. That gets on my nerves a little bit. But we still got the trophy, so it's OK."

Last Sunday, Kenseth got another trophy. And he got this one by outdistancing Junior, too. Junior finished second, about 10 seconds behind Kenseth. But Kenseth didn't care who it was that came in second. He's over all of that. Just so long as he keeps winning, he'll be OK.

"I can't believe the year we had last year and the start to this year, it's just unbelievable," Kenseth said after his sixth victory in 38 races. "It's a huge confidence boost for our team. We had a little turnover in (over-the-wall) people. We've got a couple new tire changers and a new tire carrier, so the confidence for those guys is big.

"Last week they were down on themselves because we didn't quite have the pit stop we wished at the end and it possibly could have taken us out of contention. This week they won the race for me. If they wouldn't have gotten me out in front of the 8 car and got that great pit stop on the last stop, who knows? Something might have happened and we might not have won."

Kenseth's crew came through consistently with 14-second pit stops and hit a 13.6-second stop at the end of the day. That's the kind of work most would expect from back-to-back World Pit Crew champs, but the fact this crew has three new faces from last year (one guy was working his third-ever race) had Kenseth and team owner Jack Roush curious about how quickly the new crew could adjust.

	Kenseth, right, and Earnhardt Jr. finished 1-2 at Las Vegas on Sunday.

Neither is curious, anymore.

"We just had an awesome pit crew," Kenseth said. "The DeWalt team had some turnover this winter, but these guys are still the world champions. They worked really hard to get me out of the pits and it was key to be out front on Sunday."

The victory earned him headlines for starting 2003 the same way he ended 2002. Meanwhile, Junior continued to get headlines for taking pictures of Playboy playmates and taking a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model on a ride around the track.

Clearly, Junior -- for whatever reasons -- will always be the more popular of the two drivers. But Kenseth is still the one who won Sunday, and that's enough for him.

Late in the race, Kenseth was supposed to pit with the leaders. He was running fifth, however, and two of the cars ahead of him pitted and two stayed out. He had no idea what the rest of the lead-lap cars would do, so he stayed on the track. So did Earnhardt. The two would run 1-2 for most of the rest of the race.

Kenseth won the contest between the two, however, by way of those quick pits.

"That ... is just a huge testament to how hard all our guys work and how organized Robbie (Reiser, crew chief) and Jack and everybody at Roush Racing is. The will and desire for those guys to win and how hard they work makes me so proud of my team."

And it's made Kenseth's competitors proud of him, too. He's up to second in the standings, a measly three points behind Michael Waltrip. Kenseth's performance has even garnered praise from Junior.

"Great for Matt," Junior said. "He had the quickest car, so congratulations to those guys."

As long as Kenseth has got that crew behind him, he could be garnering many more congrats this season.

Rupen Fofaria covers NASCAR for The Raleigh News & Observer and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.