Matt Kenseth...Winston Cup Champion!

[Lars]

I am convinced now that we will be able to say that within the next five years. I went to the Miller Lite Nationals at Slinger Super Speedway last night. Slinger Super Speedway is Wisconsin's version of Bristol Motor Speedway, it's a 1/4 mile high banked oval which I believe happens to be 36 degrees.

Matt was the fast qualifier in his #17 Monte Carlo and he had KPE under the hood with him. (Kipply Performance Engines) OK, so he started from the pole & lead all 200 laps of this event? Wrong. On the Wisconsin short tracks, if your the fast qualifier, you start mid-pack. Matt started in 11th and worked his way up to the front & finally took over the lead with about 60 laps to go. He had a few incidents on the track too. Early in the race he got the inside position on Tony Strupp & Tony came down on him and ripped of Matt's front right side quarter panel. Not to many laps later a spin caused a caution to come out & the track officials ordered Matt off the track to take care of the piece of fiberglass that was hanging off his car. Matt refused & to the delight of the crowd, he tried to use the wall to remove it. When that didn't work he pulled up to an official & asked him to pull it off. When he refused, Matt tried unsuccessfully to use the wall again. Finally he got up next to Donovan Morgan & what Matt told the crowd in the post race interview is that it somehow got caught in Donovan's window net & came off...lmao. I felt bad for Donovan though, on the ensuing restart, the field got bunched up & he smucked up the front end of his car & was never a factor after that.

Matt was never handed any positions either...these guys all wanted to beat Matt. With Tony fighting him for position & tearing up Matt's quarter panel to Conrad Morgan (Donovan's dad) battling Matt for at least 60 laps for 2nd spot. Conrad had it & Matt wanted it. Conrad used his years of experience at this track to hold him off. Matt would get a run underneath & Conrad was strong on the outside. Conrad also was able to use the lapped traffic on the bottom to hold of Matt & Matt would have to fall back behind him.

After the 10 minute break at lap 101. Matt tried to use the outside to get around him & about lap 115 he was able to take over 2nd position. Matt actually got underneath Conrad again & Conrad couldn't hold him off.

There were a few other ringers racing last night. No Jeff Gordon or Dale Jr. but Kenny Schrader was there in a car prepared for him by his buddy Scott Hanson. Dick Trickle had a car prepared by Conrad. Rich Bickle had a car prepared by Al Schill, who was lead most of the race until Matt passed him with about 60 to go. And Scott Wimmer was there also. I also was keeping my eye on Scott and was happy for him too. He started 22nd out of 24 and was able to work his way up to 6th position, but he was a lap down. Scott also had a problem too. A couple of cars spun out in front of him & he got collected in it & ended up at the back of the field again. Can't remember when it was, but it was before the lap 101 break.

Matt got around Scott with about 40 laps to go, and a caution came out and Scott pretty much followed Matt the rest of the race because he couldn't get around Matt to catch Dave Prunty who ended up in 5th. Dang, wanted Scott to pass Prunty...Prunty is sponsored by the company I last worked for before my current job...lol.