Kenseth didn't think he could win races or a title unless changes were made

Matt Kenseth said he didn't have a good feeling about his team at Daytona and that was a reason why the team replaced crew chief with Drew Blickensderfer with Todd Parrott, who will serve only as interim crew chief.

Kenseth said the team was lacking.

"It really wasn't a change that was really about me and Drew, to be honest with you,'' Kenseth said Friday at Auto Club Speedway in Calif. "We always talk about it being a team sport, and it really is. That's really where I found we needed some help somehow was team wide. They were used to an experienced, strong leader like Robbie (Reiser) ... it's really hard to explain, but we were really missing something on the team.

"I didn't feel like the way we operated at Daytona that we could win races and win championships. I just didn't feel like that for whatever reason and felt that a change needed to be made.''

So, naturally, the question, is why wasn't this change made last year instead of after the first race of the season?

"We didn't perform very well last year and really the timing of the change was 100 percent my fault,'' Kenseth said. "I know that I've been asked by Jack (Roush) several tiimes if there's anything he can do for me, if there's anything we need to change in the team, if there's anything we can do better on equipment. He's never told me no to anything that is reasonable and gives us whatever we need to be competitive. I would say that is 100 percent my faul.

"Jack talked to me in November and asked if we thought we were OK with everything we had going on and I really felt like we needed to give Drew a full year and full offseason. We knew there were some things to work on, he was working on some things to try to make him better. It's really hard to explain the timing of the change. It doesn't make any sense, it's not really good for anybody, really. It's just really the way it went down.

"I felt it was something that needed to be done. We're only one race in, we've got a lot of racing to do this year and get Todd in there and get him acclimated with the guys and get a head start on this thing instead of waiting until halfway into the season and it's too late to dig ourselves out.''

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