Nationwide Series
In 1997, racer Tim Bender was injured, and Bender's crew chief/car owner Robbie Reiser hired his former competitor and rival Kenseth to race for him despite having only one Busch start. Reiser said "Matt and I used to have some fierce races against each other. I needed someone who understood race cars the way I understood them. I knew he could drive and he could talk to me in a manner I could understand." Kenseth qualified third for the new team's first race. He was racing in third place in the final laps when he spun and finished eleventh. Kenseth qualified in 20th place for the next race at Talladega in his second time at a track big enough to have a significant draft. He passed thirteen cars to finish seventh. Kenseth had two Top 5 finishes during the partial season. The following year he raced full-time all season. He won his first Busch Series race on February 22, 1998, when he nudged leader Tony Stewart's car entering the final turn of the final lap, culmulating in a second- and third-place finishes in the Busch points. Kenseth drove the No. 17 Chevrolet sponsored first by Kraft, then Lycos, and most recently by DeWalt.
Kenseth won the last two races of the Busch season in 2006 driving the #17 Pennzoil Ford Fusion, at Phoenix and Homestead.
In 2007, Kenseth planned to run 23 Busch races to be sponsored by Arby's restaurants (13 races), Dish Network (five races), iLevel by Weyerhaeuser (four races), and Aflac (one race). Kenseth won the Stater Brothers 300 at California Speedway in February and the O'Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway in April.
Kenseth broke an 18 race winless streak as he won the 2008 Nicorette 300 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Kenseth's 23rd career series victory came after the series was renamed the Nationwide Series. On lap 104 at the 2009 Aaron 312 on April 25, Kenseth took a wild ride flipping over 3.5 times, sliding on his roof, then completed a fourth flip. The car burst into flames, and Kenseth walked away.
Kenseth won the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 at Darlington Raceway in 2009. Kenseth led only the last four laps of the race – three of them under caution – after Busch had to pull into the pits due to a flat right-rear tire during the penultimate caution period and just as the race was about to get into a green-white-checkered finish.
On May 28, 2011 Kenseth won the Top Gear 300 at Charlotte. Kenseth, filling in for Trevor Bayne, passed Roush Fenway teammate Carl Edwards with two laps to go to win his only Nationwide Start of the 2011 season.
Read more about this topic: Matt Kenseth
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