Matt Kenseth celebrates in victory lane after winning the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday. Associated Press

Kenseth gets second win in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS - All the controversy and rule changes that followed Matt Kenseth a year ago continued to be a driving force for the defending stock car champion during the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

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He was chastised for leading the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series standings for 33 races, despite winning just one race. NASCAR responded by changing the way it crowns a champion by turning the final 10 races into a runoff to keep drivers from stockpiling top-10 finishes instead of racing for the win.

Kenseth continued to extract a little revenge on his critics Sunday by winning his second race of the year and moving into the lead of this year's standings - one race earlier than he took control of the standings a year ago.

"It's been pretty bad to the bones so far," Kenseth said after finishing 200 yards ahead of rookie Kasey Kahne. "The last few weeks has been the most fun I've ever had in a race car. I'd rather have them talking about us because we're doing so good instead of we're doing so bad."

Two weeks ago Kenseth won a photo finish with Kahne at North Carolina Speedway. This time the 23-year-old driver was closing quickly, but there wasn't enough time to make it as dramatic.

"We need about 20 more miles in each of these races," said Kahne, who also finished second in Saturday's Busch Series race.

Kenseth won last year's title by stockpiling 31 top-15 finishes in 36 races. This time, he seems obsessed with being overpowering.

In just three races this year, Kenseth has two wins and is the only driver in the series with three top-10 finishes.

Reach Don Coble at doncoble@bellsouth.net.

--From the Monday, March 8, 2004 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle