Trying to make NASCAR history, Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth headed to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway looking for his third victory in three weeks. While he became the fifth driver to win the first two races of the year when he took the win last week at the Auto Club Club Speedway, Kenseth and his Drew Blickensderfer-led crew were looking to become the first to make it three-in-a-row to open the season.

Unhappy with his car for much of the weekend, Kenseth did not appear optimistic about his chances of making history. Starting the Shelby 427 from the back of the pack, the No. 17 team knew they had their work cut out for them during Sunday's race.

The team never had a chance to show their stuff as their luck ran out only a handful of laps into the 427-mile event. When Brad Keselowski brought out the first caution on Lap 2, Kenseth's engine shut off going down the backstretch. Reporting to the crew the car sounded "funny," Kenseth hit pit road on Lap 3 as the crew lifted the hood to check the plug wires. Sending him back on the track, the 2003 Cup Series champion came back on the radio reporting he felt the engine was going to blow within the next few laps.

As Jimmie Johnson led the field to the green on the restart, smoke began to shoot out of the exhaust pipes. Going into Turn 1, the engine gave out as the smoke increased and Kenseth took the car behind the wall.

"You think you almost would have seen something last night," a disappointed Kenseth said after climbing out of his car early in the going. "It's really disappointing, but on the other hand these guys at Roush Yates Engines do an awesome job. I think that's the first failure we've had in over two years. It's just unfortunate we didn't even get to race. We didn't even really know what we had."

After the strongest start to a season in his career, Kenseth was forced to watch the third race of the 2009 season from the garage area.