Kenseth (born March 10, 1972) is a stock car racing driver for the Roush Racing team in NASCAR's Nextel Cup series. Kenseth was born in Cambridge, Wisconsin.

Pre-NASCAR Career
Matt began stock car racing in 1988 at the age of 16, and won the feature in his third night of racing. While driving in various tracks thruought Wisconsin he drove the #8 stock car.(ata) By the early 1990's he was making a name for himself in the late model ranks of Wisconsin, beating nationally known drivers like Dick Trickle and Robbie Reiser. He won championships at Wisconsin International Speedway, Madison International Speedway. He decided to go south to the Hooters Cup series in 1996, and nearly won the series championship as a rookie.

Busch Series
Kenseth made his Busch Series (BGN) debut in 1996 for a few spot starts. In 1997, snowmobile racer Tim Bender got injured, and Benders crew chief/owner Robbie Reiser called his former competitor Kenseth to fill in until Bender was healed. The Reiser-Kenseth combination proved to be successful, culmulating in a second and third place finishes in the BGN points. Matt drove the #17 car sponsored by Lycos, Kraft, and Dewalt.

Winston Cup Nextel Cup
Matt made his Winston Cup series debut in 1998 at Dover, filling in for the injured Bill Elliott. He finished 6th (the last driver before Matt to debut with a Top 10 finish was Rusty Wallace).

In 2000 Matt's entire team joined the Roush Racing organization, where they ran for and won the Raybestos Rookie of the Year. He won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, and finished 14th in points.

In 2001 Matt finished 13th in points.

In 2002 Matt won the most races (5) and 1 pole, but inconsistency caused him to finish 8th in the final points.

In 2003 Matt dominated in the points standings for almost the entire season and became the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup champion, the last driver to ever hold that title.

There was criticism about the conservative style he employed en route to winning the championship (he only won one race in 2003) and is widely believed to be the final straw that led the sanctioning body to incopororate a playoff style run for the championship starting in 2004. The championship had been clinched before the final race of the season in 5 of the previous 6 years and television ratings dropped each time the points race was anti-climatic.

Kenseth was not the only driver in NASCAR history to play conservative to the title but being the most recent champion to do such made him the target of the recent changes.

In 2004 Matt won the IROC championship. He finished 8th in the NASCAR points and qualified for the inaugural Nextel Cup.

In 2005 Matt made his 200th start. His career total after his first 200 starts is: 1 championship, 9 wins, 40 Top 5's, 85 Top 10's, 1 pole position, and over $28.5 million earnings. He started out the season with relatively poor finishes, but had a strong run mid-season run. His strong run took him from lower teens in championship points to 8th in less than 8 races, and he qualified for the "Chase for the Cup".

He has driven his whole NASCAR career in the #17 Ford car, which has been sponsored by DeWalt Tools and owned by Jack Roush.

In 2000, Matt married Katie Martin. Matt has one child, a son, Ross, from a previous relationship. They also have two cats, one named Lars after Lars Ullrich of Metallica, Kenseth's favorite band and one named Charlotte, after the site of Kenseth's first Winston Cup win.