Who are these NASCAR guys Anyhow?

Matt Kenseth
Birthday: March 10, 1972
Hometown: Cambridge, Wis.

Now that Kurt Busch is gone, Matt Kenseth is the only one of Roush Racing’s five Cup drivers with a championship to his credit.

Kenseth won the title in 2003, the last year before NASCAR implemented its Chase for the Nextel Cup playoff format.

Kenseth has made the Chase in each of its first two years, but has finished seventh and eighth, respectively, in the final point standings.

Still, Kenseth has finished in the top 10 in points for four consecutive years and last year had six top-fives among the season’s final 10 races.

Kenseth has been a model of consistency in his Cup career since he started racing full time in 2000. Only once did he fail to record a win or reach double digits in top-10s — both in 2001 — and has never finished worse than 14th in points.

Kenseth honed his craft in his native Wisconsin, winning Late Model track championships at such venues as Madison International Speedway and Wisconsin International Raceway. At 19 he became the youngest driver to win in the ARTGO Challenge Series — once held by Mark Martin — and in 1994 became the youngest to win the Miller Genuine Draft National championships.

Kenseth won another Wisconsin track title in 1995, the same year he competed in the NASCAR All-Pro Series. After stints in the Hooters Series and the ASA Series, Kenseth was given the opportunity in 1997 to drive in the Busch Series for Robbie Reiser, also a Wisconsin native and future crew chief of the No. 17 Ford.

In 1998 in his first full season in the Busch Series, Kenseth posted three wins and had 17 top-fives and 23 top-10s to finish second in points. He followed that with a third-place ranking in ‘99, his last full slate on the Busch circuit.

Kenseth made his Cup debut in September 1998, filling in for Bill Elliott and driving the No. 94 Ford to a sixth-place finish at Dover. He finished fourth at Dover a year later in the third of five races in the No. 17 Ford. His first victory came in 2000 in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

With Reiser as its crew chief, the No. 17 Ford set a world record in the Unocal 76/Rockingham World Pit Crew Competition in 2001 and bettered that mark with a full pit stop in 16.81 seconds in ‘02.

A more impressive streak occurred in 2003 when Kenseth kept the No. 17 Ford in the atop the point standings for a record 34 consecutive weeks to give Roush Racing its first Cup title.