Upset victory in ’98 put Kenseth’s career in gear,
Matt Kenseth owns two Daytona 500 trophies.
He won a Coca-Cola 600 and a Southern 500, two more of NASCAR’s crown jewel events. Add three Bristol night races. Plus the 2004 All-Star Challenge at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a million-dollar payday.
Including non-points events, Kenseth has won 72 times in more than 950 starts over 22 years in NASCAR’s top two divisions.
Yet no victory has meant more to him than the least lucrative of the bunch, the 1998 Goodwrench Service 200 in Rockingham, N.C.
“We didn’t have a sponsor on the car at the time, driving for the Reisers, and that helped us secure a sponsor for the rest of the year,” the 2003 champion from Cambridge recalled recently.
“We were able to continue racing. At the time we didn’t even know if we were going to be able to go to Vegas and run the next race.”
Before Kenseth steps away from NASCAR after this season’s finale Sunday in Homestead, Fla., he and others involved were asked to reflect on that pivotal race and the time before and after.
Kenseth had finished a moderately successful partial 1997 season driving in what was then known as the Busch Series for former Wisconsin short-track rival Robbie Reiser, but they went into the
off-season without sponsorship.
Roush Racing — the Winston Cup powerhouse with which Kenseth had signed a testing contract — found the Family Channel for Kenseth and Reiser Enterprises, allowing the team to get ready for the 1998 season. But then that deal fell through, too, and for the second time in a matter of months, the Reiser family was faced with the prospect of shutting down.
Before the season opener, Roush found Lycos — a competitor in the relatively new market of internet search engines — for a one-race deal. The sponsorship and earnings from a sixth-place finish allowed Reiser and Kenseth to stay in business for another week.
“Matt included, all of us wanted to make this thing work some way,” Reiser said. “There was not a lot of talk about not making it work. It was all the talk about making it work and how we had to do it.
“It was a bunch of people who moved from Wisconsin who weren’t going back home trying to figure out how to make this thing work. It was big hearts and a lot of determination, and that overcame being broke and worrying about the next move.”
As a thank-you and in hopes of getting Lycos on board for more races, Kenseth’s No. 17 Chevrolet carried the company’s logos on its quarter panels, although the Lycos’ white was an odd match for the a meaningless blue, red and yellow paint scheme intended for the Family Channel.
The car would be noticed, and not just because of the color.
“As the race went by, we started to work our way through,” Reiser said. “With 15 laps to go, we were second behind Tony Stewart and beating on his bumper trying to take the lead. It was pretty damn exciting.”
Stewart, the 1997 Indy Racing League champion, was making his 16th stock-car start. Driving for the fullyfunded, championship-level Joe Gibbs Racing, he had just about everything he needed to earn his first victory, except maybe experience.
“We had ran well all day and led a lot of laps during the day but I think I just over-drove the car a little,” Stewart recalled. “I think I pulled the pin a little early and ran the tires too hard, and Matt did a much better job at the end of that race of running a pace that took care of his tires.
“When I saw him in the mirror coming, I knew I was going to have my hands full because I wasn’t sure I had much left to fight him off with.”
With a lap and a half to go, Kenseth pulled up alongside on the back stretch. They jostled briefly, leaving a tire scuff on the second 4 of the No. 44 on Stewart’s left door.
Stewart, though, kept his momentum in the clear high lane and Kenseth had the lapped cars of Kevin Grubb and Joe Bessey in his path.
Nashville Network viewers heard Darrell Waltrip declare the competition over, but Kenseth wasn’t listening. He needed a lap to regain what he had lost but got to Stewart’s bumper in Turn 3 on the final lap.
“Rockingham was a very line-sensitive racetrack and if you missed it getting into 3 by a foot you’d just lose all grip and the car would slide away," Kenseth said. "(The car) grabbed the line perfect and I was able to get to the gas way earlier than Tony and get a run on him and get him moved up the track a little bit and pass him.”
Kenseth, wearing a plain blue driver’s suit, climbed out of his car and pumped his fist. Reiser and his team — eight full-time employees and a handful of helpers who flew down from Wisconsin — rushed to victory lane.
Stewart had led 60 laps that day. Kenseth led one-quarter.
“I remember at the time, being as young as I was, I was so mad that I let it get away from me,” Stewart said. “I was so mad that he knocked me out of the way, as I said to myself at the time.
“You look back at it all these years later and go, nah, he didn’t knock me out of the way, he just moved me to go win the race like I probably would have done the same thing.”
Actually, Stewart added, Kenseth did it much more gracefully than he could have. He probably would have wrecked them both and maybe others. But years in stock cars — and years of having to fix his own stock cars — helped Kenseth understand the art of the nudge in a way Stewart wouldn’t for years.
Before Kenseth’s car got on track for the third race of ’98, Lycos had signed up for the full season, although Reiser took a deal for a fraction of the money that Roush president Geoff Smith would have accepted.
The company let its option for 1999 lapse, but shortly thereafter, tool manufacturer DeWalt signed on and went with Kenseth and Reiser into Cup with Roush.
Kenseth reconnected at Joe Gibbs Racing, he’ll carry the company’s colors in his farewell Sunday, bidding for one more victory.