There’s no place like home
Kenseth is the center of attention Madison
TOWN OF RUTLAND – When Matt Kenseth first raced Madison International Speedway, he was barely 20.
A couple of years into his weekly short-track career, Kenseth was making a name for himself in his home state. He knew the veterans. They were starting to know him.
When Kenseth walked back into the pits Friday afternoon at the track 20 miles from his hometown of Cambridge, he was the big dog. Everyone knew the driver who won the championship at this half-mile track in 1994 and the NASCAR championship nine years later. Fans packed the stands to watch him. Drivers onethird his age came to beat him.
“I don't feel a lot different racing,” the 47-year-old Kenseth said before the ARCA Midwest Tour's Howie Lettow Classic 100. “The cast of characters changes.
“Even through my last few years of racing in Cup, a lot of the guys who were my heroes and mentors and I looked up to and watched on TV, I watched them retire and new guys came in. There's one time you're the new guy, then you're the middle guy and all of a sudden you're the old guy and the veteran that's been there a while.
“I don't know if that really changes my feelings as far as when you get in a race car and you do all the things you've always done to try to get your car to go as fast as you can and make adjustments and do the best job you can getting around the racetrack and
racing everyone around you.
“It’s just, I think, more different when you’re walking around the pits or driver introductions just because they’re all different names and faces and people you maybe don’t really know or they’re new guys.”
So instead of the experienced drivers Kenseth had raced back when he was in his 20s – including Robbie Reiser, who would become his NASCAR crew chief – the mostly retired Kenseth was racing the up-and-comers of the Upper Midwest.
The field included Carson Kvapil, the 16-year-old son of 2003 NASCAR truck champion Travis Kvapil. The elder Kvapil followed Kenseth as a champion at Madison and as a Cup driver. And there was Luke Fenhaus, a 14-year-old prospect from mid-state Wausau, who was born five months after Kenseth won his NASCAR title.
They’re no more in awe of Kenseth – at least on the track – than Kenseth was of Rich Bickle or Dick Trickle or Joe Shear, some of the regional hotshots he raced with nearly 30 years ago.
“They’re on the same program as us,” Fenhaus said of Kenseth. “We’re here for another race, and just because of his name … he’s just another person. We go race against him just like anybody else.”
Kenseth won his other super-late model start this season, the Slinger Nationals at the quarter-mile Slinger Speedway, with an aggressive pass of Ty Majeski, his a 24-year-old former NASCAR teammate. The circumstances weren’t all that much different from when he won beat the NASCAR-bound Bickle for the Miller Nationals title at Madison.
Kenseth has mostly kept himself busy since stepping away from NASCAR last fall by spending time with his wife and their four young daughters.
He expected Friday to be the final start of his “grueling,” two-race 2019 schedule.
When he first raced at Madison, Kenseth had the nickname, “Matt the Brat” for his aggressive style at a young age as he was headed to the big time.
At this point, Kenseth is happy to pick races and places that interest him and fit with his other plans. Each trip to one of his old stomping grounds brings back old memories.
“It’s fun to just come back here, just to drive in here.” said Kenseth, who last raced at Madison in 2014. “We did that every Friday night all summer for so many years.
“The time goes by really, really fast, and it kind of brings back a lot of memories of getting your car ready to go on Friday night and getting warmed up and driving out here in the hauler, getting ready to race Friday night. … It’s neat to get back out here.”