Athletes - Matt Kenseth

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Matt Kenseth

	Athletes - Matt Kenseth

Matthew Roy Kenseth (born March 10, 1972) is a stock car racing driver for the Roush Racing team in NASCAR's Nextel Cup series. Kenseth was born in Cambridge, Wisconsin.

Pre-NASCAR Career

Matt began stock car racing in 1988 at the age of 16, and won the feature in his third night of racing. While driving in various tracks throughout Wisconsin he drove the No. 8 stock car for owner Mike Butz. By the early 1990s he was making a name for himself in the late model ranks of Wisconsin, beating nationally known drivers such as Dick Trickle and Robbie Reiser. He won championships at Wisconsin International Speedway in Kaukauna, WI, and Madison (WI) International Speedway, in Oregon, WI. He decided to go south to the Hooters Pro Cup series in 1996 and nearly won the series championship as a rookie.

Busch Series

Kenseth made his Busch Series debut in 1996. In 1997, snowmobile racer Tim Bender got injured, and Bender's crew chief/owner Robbie Reiser called his former competitor Kenseth to fill in until Bender was healed. The Reiser-Kenseth combination proved successful, culmulating in a second- and third-place finishes in the Busch points. Matt drove the No. 17 car with sponsored by first Lycos, Kraft and finally Dewalt.

Winston Cup/Nextel Cup

Kenseth made his Winston Cup series debut in 1998 at Dover, Del., filling in for the injured Bill Elliott. He finished sixth. The last driver before Matt to debut with a top-10 finish was Rusty Wallace.

In 2000 Kenseth's entire team joined the Roush Racing organization, where they won the Raybestos Rookie of the Year. He won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, and finished 14th in points.

In 2001 Kenseth finished 13th in points.

In 2002 Kenseth won the most races (5) and one pole, but inconsistency caused him to finish eighth in the final points.

In 2003 he dominated in the points standings for almost the entire season and became the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup champion, the last driver to ever hold that title.

There was criticism about the conservative style he employed en route to winning that championship - he won just one race - which is widely believed to be the final straw that led the sanctioning body to incorporate the playoff-style Chase for the Championship that debuted in 2004. The championship had been clinched before the final race of the season in five of the previous six years, and television ratings dropped each time as the series battled the National Football League for autumn TV ratings.

In 2004 Kenseth won the Internation Race of Champions (IROC) championship. He finished eighth in the NASCAR points and qualified for the inaugural Nextel Cup.

In 2005 Kenseth made his 200th start. He started the season with relatively poor finishes but had a strong mid-season run. This took him from the lower teens in championship points to eighth in eight races, and he qualified for the Chase. His career total after his first 200 starts was: 1 championship, 10 wins, 40 Top 5s, 85 Top 10s, 1 pole position, and more than $28.5 million earnings.

Matt had a fast start to the 2006 season. He lead early in the Daytona 500, but then spun out after contact with Tony Stewart. He fell down two laps, but rallied back to a 15th place finish. Matt won the following race at California Speedway.

Kenseth has driven his whole NASCAR career in the No. 17 Ford car, which has been sponsored by DeWalt Power Tools and owned by Jack Roush.

In 2000, he married Katie Martin. Matt has one child, a son, Ross, from a previous relationship. Matt and Katie have two cats, one named Lars after Lars Ulrich of Metallica (Kenseth's favorite band), and one named Charlotte after the site of Kenseth's first Winston Cup win.

Criticism

Kenseth has drawn criticism for his relatively quiet personality and his boring conservative style, clean racing and not putting the pedal to the metal for the win with the driving talent he clearly has. Because of this, he is rarely mentioned among the elite core of NASCAR drivers.

NFL Street Series

Kenseth can be created in NFL Street 2 for use in NFL Challenge Mode and "Own The City".

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Matt Kenseth ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Matt Kenseth; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.