Matt Kenseth

 

 Matt Kenseth Matt was born in Cambridge Wisconsin, on March 19th 1972. He is an American stock car driver and currently drives the #17 Crown Royal Ford in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. He was the first to win a Daytona 500 for the Roush Fenway Racing team. He started racing when he was 16, on several short tracks in Wisconsin, and won three different championships while doing this. He also got rookie of the year in 2000 and in 2003. Matt is now a full-time driver in NASCAR and in 2004 he won the championship for International race of Champions. He also won the Winston cup series twice, once in 1998 when he was filling in for Bill Elliott and once in 2003 where he became the Winston Cup Champion. He also was the only rookie and still holds the record to win the 600 mile event in Charlotte at the Coca-Cola 600. In 2007 he won the Auto Club 500 and the Ford 400 where he earned over 6,000,000 for his winnings, and got an extra 100,000 from his Safeway sponsor. Before these events he finished 4th in point standings in the Nextel Cup Series. Unfortunetly, in 2008 he did not win any races. However this is the first season since 2001 that that this has happened. Then he made up for it, winning the Auto Club 500 which was the second race of the season, followed up by a win at Daytona 500. He then had a win the following race, and now holds the title to the fourth driver in NASCAR history to achieve this. In Feb. 2010 Drew Blickenderfer was released of his duties as a crew chief of the # 17 team, and Todd Parrott was announced to be his replacement. So far this year he has earned over 3,000,000 dollars while competing. He has had 8 top tens and 4 top fives for this years 2010 Season. He has only started in 14 races for the Sprint Cup thus far!!  He currently holds 8th in standings for the Sprint Cup Series, and 71st in for the Nationwide Series!