Matt Kenseth was given a great birthday present on Sunday, taking home the Sprint Cup series event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for his third victory at the track and his first after his offseason move to Joe Gibbs Racing.
Kenseth was able to hold off Kasey Kahne and took the top spot over Brad Keselowski who finished third, Kyle Busch in fourth and Carl Edwards fifth. The win was the 25th career victory for Kenseth and the rest of the top 10 was rounded out by Jimmie Johnson, the overall points leader, in sixth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. seventh, with Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick and Paul Menard finishing 10th.
According to ESPN.com, Kenseth won on his 41st birthday and was able to take advantage by only taking fuel instead of tires, much like the other drivers did on pit road. Kenseth took the lead and did not relent the rest of the way, eeking out the win over Kahne.
"I was real nervous all day," Kenseth said. "(Kahne) had the best car. I told (crew chief) Jason (Ratcliff) with about 12 to go that I was sorry we were going to lose. We were just too tight. ... We didn't have the fastest car there, but we had it where we needed it to be."
Kenseth had a ton of attention on him this season after leaving Roush Fenway Racing and heading to Joe Gibbs after 13 seasons and now he has a win to add to his resume. Tony Stewart won the event last year and finished 11th on Sunday, while another driver who had a lot of attention, Denny Hamlin, finished 15th.
Hamlin arguably had the most eventful week of anyone at the race, as he was fined by NASCAR for $25,000 for making disparaging comments about the new Gen-6 cars and then later said that he did not plan on paying the fine. Hamlin made a solid push in the middle of the race and eventually ended up in 15th in front of Aric Almirola.
Kenseth won for the first Sprint Cup race on a 1.5 mile track this season and also became the first driver since Kyle Busch in 2009 to win on their birthday. According to ESPN, Kenseth has taken a checkered flag at least once in 11 of the past 14 seasons and the victory marked the 50th win for Toyota in Sprint Cup races.
"Lots of times, a victory, the thrill of it, depends on kind of what happens leading up to it," Gibbs said. "We've had a tough couple of weeks, as everybody knows. ... In tough times, everybody bands together around our place. We started fighting, and we worked our way out of some tough things."
Busch gave himself a good chance in the race, but ended up falling back after a pit-row penalty and ended up finishing 18th. Busch had a strong day on Saturday after coming in second place in the Nationwide race, but he couldn't muster up the same performance on Sunday.
"I just hate it for my team," said Busch, a Las Vegas native and graduate of nearby Durango High School. "We had by far the best car in practice. I don't know where that went. Today was a different day. The worst Gibbs car ended up winning the race. It's funny how this game works."
Kahne almost won the race himself after taking the lead after a restart before Kenseth was able to retake it and left Kahne wondering what could have happened if the pole qualifying did not get rained out, as he took the top spot last season at the track.
Danica Patrick had an interesting week after getting hit in the head with a rock on Thursday at a dirt road race at the track and ended up finishing 33rd after dealing with a tire violation. Patrick has been uneven since winning the pole at Daytona and leading laps at the Daytona 500 and she will look to improve next week at Bristol.