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WLUK Fox News 11 November 9, 2003
Matt Kenseth, a native of Cambridge, Wisconsin, won the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup Championship with a fourth place finish in Sunday's race in Rockingham, NC.
Although there is one race left in the season, Kenseth's point lead is such that he doesn't even have to race next week in Homestead, FL.
Kenseth won two Fox River Racing Club titles at Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna in the mid-1990s before moving up the racing ranks.
Bill Elliott won the Pop Secret Popcorn 400 while Kenseth, who has led the points since the fourth race of the season, wrapped up the first Cup title for car owner Jack Roush with one race remaining.
"I got all this stuff bottled up inside because I didn't want to get too excited the last few months," Kenseth said. "I don't know what I'm going to do now. It's an awesome feeling."
Kenseth came into Sunday's race knowing he needed only to finish seventh or better to end the suspense.
The 31-year-old driver took the title in his fourth season in NASCAR's top stock car series with consistency, winning just once but coming up with 11 top fives and 26 top 10s in 35 races.
He is 226 points ahead of runner-up Jimmie Johnson with only next weekend's race at Homestead-Miami Speedway remaining. The most a driver can make up in one race is 151 points.
Elliott, 48, who has been the subject of retirement rumors, came up with his first win of the season, the 44th of his career and first since taking the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis last year.
He had to start at the end of the field after his team changed an engine Friday, but Elliott came on strong and led a race-high 140 of the 393 laps on the 1.017-mile Rockingham oval. He drove his Evernham Motorsports Dodge across the finish line 1.23-seconds - about 10 car-lengths - ahead of Johnson's Chevrolet.
Kenseth becomes the second Wisconsite to win NASCAR's top title. Greenfield's Alan Kulwicki also won a Winston Cup crown.
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Portrait of a champion