By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
With his fourth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series start of 2018 coming in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, its been a busy year already for DJ Kennington.
The Canadian, who balanced full-time Pinty’s Series seasons in 2016 and ’17 with his first-career Cup starts, will do the same in 2018. This time, his No. 96 Gaunt Brothers Racing Toyota has left the plate tracks more often, running Phoenix, Martinsville and now Bristol following February’s Daytona 500.
“Got lots going on, lots of racing to do,” Kennington told Kickin’ The Tires.
With 11 seasons in the Canadian NASCAR series, the 40-year-old has an idea of the challenges the circuit can present. The Cup Series, however, is continuing the pack a punch… and Kennington is loving it.
“Man oh man, they’re so fast,” he said of Cup cars at Bristol. “The G-forces in the corners — it’s just insane how fast you get around this place and how fast things happen.”
The same challenges are mirrored on the financial side, with team owner Marty Gaunt “picking and choosing” races he feels his equipment can run best. That has given Kennington the opportunity to compete on short tracks along with plate races.
“We’re for as much sponsorship as we can get. We’re taking it one race at a time,” he said. “Marty Gaunt of Gaunt Brothers is trying to pick races he thinks we can run well at. It’s a tough series, so we’re picking tracks we think we got our best opportunity to run best at.”
That next race may come two weeks out at Talladega Superspeedway, a place Kennington competed at in 2017 with Premium Motorsports. A second start at the 2.66-miler, again, is sponsor-dependent.
“Our next one possibly is Talladega depending on sponsorship,” he said. “He’s picking and choosing, we have a schedule laid out that we want to run, but we won’t commit to anything until we figure out dollars and cents.”