Matt Kenseth began stock car racing in 1988 at the age of 16, and won the feature in his third night of racing. Matt Kenseth made a name for himself while driving at several Wisconsin tracks for Mike Butz in the #8 late model, beating nationally known drivers such as Dick Trickle and Robbie Reiser. Matt Kenseth won the 1994 and 1995 track championships at Wisconsin International Raceway. Matt Kenseth also won track championships at Madison International Speedway, including the 1994 late model track championship over Robbie Reiser. Matt Kenseth decided to go south to the USAR Hooters Pro Cup series in 1996 and nearly won the series championship as a rookie.
In 1996, Matt Kenseth made his Busch Series debut at Lowe's Motor Speedway with car owner Carl Wegner. In 1997, snowmobile racer Tim Bender got injured, and Bender's crew chief/owner Robbie Reiser called his former competitor and rival 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 Kraft, then Lycos, and lastly DeWalt.
Matt Kenseth won the last two races of the Busch season in 2006 driving the #17 Penzoil Ford Fusion, at Phoenix and Homestead.
In 2007, Matt Kenseth planned to run 22 Busch races and to be sponsored by Arby's restaurants. Matt Kenseth won the Stater Bros. 300 at California Speedway in February.
Matt Kenseth made his Winston Cup series debut in 1998 at Dover, Del., filling in for Bill Elliott who had to attend his father's funeral on the day of the race. Matt Kenseth finished sixth, the third best debut of any driver. The last driver before Matt Kenseth to debut with a top-10 finish was Rusty Wallace in 1980 with a second place finish in Atlanta.
In 2000 Matt Kenseth's entire team joined the Roush Racing organization, where they beat out Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to win the Raybestos Rookie of the Year. Matt Kenseth won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, and is still the only rookie to win the famed 600 mile event. Matt Kenseth went on to finish 14th in points with four top 5s and 11 top 10s.
In 2001 Matt Kenseth finished 13th in points with four top 5s and nine top 10 finishes. Robbie Reiser and the DeWalt pit crew won the Unocal 76 World Pit Crew Competition.
In 2002 Matt Kenseth won the most races (five) and one pole, but inconsistency caused him to finish eighth in the final points. The DeWalt team won a second Unocal 76 World Pit Crew Competition.
In 2003 Matt Kenseth 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. In so doing, he also became only the second Wisconsinite to win the championship (the late Alan Kulwicki was the first, in 1992). Kenseth also had a series best 25 top 10 finishes.
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 Matt Kenseth won the International Race of Champions (IROC) championship. He qualified for the inaugural Nextel Cup, finished eighth in the final NASCAR point standings.
Matt Kenseth started the 2005 season with relatively poor finishes but had a strong mid-season run. He rose from the 24th place in championship points after fourteen races to eighth after twenty six races, and Matt Kenseth qualified for the Chase for the Cup. He finished seventh in the final points standings. Kenseth made his 200th career start. His totals after his first 200 starts were: 1 championship, 10 wins, 40 Top 5s, 85 Top 10s, 1 pole position, and more than $28.5 million earnings.
Matt Kenseth had a fast start to the 2006 season. He led 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 Kenseth won the following race at California Speedway. He was the points leader after the eighth race at Phoenix. Matt Kenseth won the Dover spring race by racing from sixth to the front in the final 60 laps. Matt Kenseth made the winning pass over teammate Jamie McMurray with three laps left. With the season winding down into the last dozen races, Matt Kenseth won the Sharpie 500 at the Bristol Motor Speedway - securing his spot in the chase for the Nextel Cup. Matt Kenseth finished the year with winnings of $9,524,966, his take for second place.
In the second race of the 2007 season Matt Kenseth won the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway.
Matthew Roy Kenseth was born on March 10, 1972 in Cambridge, Wisconsin. Matt Kenseth is a stock car racing driver for the Roush Fenway Racing team in NASCAR's Nextel Cup series.