In need of a turnaround, Chip Bolin blew the dust off of an old companion: Roush Fenway chassis RK-473.

It was the oldest car in the No. 17 team's garage, it dated back to the race at Dover International Speedway last fall. Losing ground on the championship cutoff every week, the brand new crew chief pulled out a proven car for two of Kenseth's best tracks. The results were unmistakable Sunday, when Matt Kenseth recorded a fourth-place finish at Dover International Speedway.

Kenseth's best finish so far this season, and his third consecutive top-ten finish, elevated him within 95 points of the final Chase position. Just one month ago Kenseth was 22nd in the Sprint Cup points standings, 204 points away from the 12th position. It seems a little sunshine is peeking through the clouds for Kenseth.

"We're going the right way," Kenseth said. "I feel like we're on the upswing. Every week, we've been getting a little bit better over the last
month or so. I'm proud of these DeWalt guys. I know we still have some work to do to be a contender and win, but we're getting close."

"I'll admit, the weakest link in the deal is me," Bolin said Sunday. "Because I was always the guy sitting in the front of the truck up here figuring out what to put in the car to make it go fast. And Robbie made sure that it had four wheels on it, and they were all tight, and that everybody got here like they were supposed to get here, and that the plane left Charlotte on time. Whenever you have to start learning to focus on that, it distracts from what you're good at, and you want to gravitate toward what you've always done. I've had to learn to balance my priorities. I've learned that, and these guys haven't given up. Everything I ask them to do, they do, and we're slowly getting there."

Bolin feels that as long as they put cutthroat cars on the pavement then the numbers will undertake themselves. Now more than ever making the chase seems more achievable.

"In the big scheme of things, we should be worried about getting in the Chase," Bolin said. But for us, we needed to be able to put racecars on the racetrack that could run in the top five every week, like everyone at DeWalt and everyone at Roush Fenway expects us to do. We didn't do that there for about three weeks, and it got us behind. Now that we're back doing what we're supposed to be doing, we're running what we're supposed to be running. As long as we keep doing that, we'll be fine. You're looking at a group, I think it was '05 we were still 350 points out of 10th. So nobody here is going to give up. As long as we keep doing what we're supposed to be doing, we'll be OK."

But still, Kenseth is taking nothing for granted.

"I don't think we're back in championship form yet," Kenseth stated. "We're closer, but I don't think we're back to where we need to be to be a serious contender. We're definitely moving back toward the top 12 and things are going in the right direction, but we still have some work to do."