In the most recent lot of NASCAR Cup drivers, most believe that Christopher Bell is an underrated character who has speed, technique, and performance, but does not come under the radar mostly because of his rather reserved nature. The same was the case with Matt Kenseth it seems back in 2011, at least according to Kyle Busch.
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During a series of weekly driver interviews, the former Joe Gibbs Racing driver was asked about his thoughts on who according to him is the most underrated driver, Busch’s response was: “I’d say (Matt) Kenseth, I guess. I mean, he’s a champion, he’s a Daytona 500 winner but he never really gets much attention on him. He’s always kind of quiet and under the radar.”
He added, “I mean, that’s his style, but he just doesn’t get much attention. I mean, look at all the attention Trevor (Bayne) got for winning the 500. Matt never got any of that.” Besides that Busch cited the same reason as Bell for Kenseth being an underdog: “He’s just quiet.”
Although Kenseth drove over 22 years in the NASCAR Cup series and made 697 starts, he could win 39 races in total finishing 331 in top-10. While his last Cup win came in 2017 when he won the Can-Am 500 race at Pheonix, the final race of the Round of 8 of that season,
Kenseth had his most successful period with Rush Fenway Racing, the team with which he won the 2003 championship by being consistent throughout the season.
He just won one race that year in Las Vegas. He consistently finished inside the top 10 in the standings since 2002, finishing P2 once in 2006. Kenseth was associated with the Roush Fenway Racing team until 2012, after which he joined JGR and became a teammate with Busch and Denny Hamlin between 2013 and 2017.
After that, in 2018 although he joined Roush Fenway Racing once again, he didn’t see the success as before in his part-time stint and ended up finishing P32 in the standings.
In his final season in 2020, after driving in Super-late models for a year in 2019, Kenseth was announced as the replacement for Kyle Larson in the #42 Chevy for Chip Ganassi Racing for the remainder of the season following the first four races, after the latter was released for using a racial slur during an iRacing event. However, he could only manage to land the #42 team in P28th place.
When Busch gave out his ideal three-car team drivers
When Busch was asked about the drivers he would hire to drive in his three-car team apart from his then teammates, he chose Kenseth as one of the drivers. Busch stated:
“I would say Tony (Stewart) would be one, Jimmie (Johnson) would be one, and…hmm. I don’t know who the third one would be. I’ll go with Matt. I get along pretty well with Matt. Matt’s good at what he does, and we both really like racing Late Models.”
While Kenseth announced his retirement in November 2020, in an interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, Busch, who is still very much active, will be looking forward to a resurgent year in 2025 having not been able to win a single race in 2024.
