The Champion’s Prelude: Matt Kenseth’s 2002 Cup Series season

In just his fourth full season in the NASCAR Cup Series, Matt Kenseth set a torridly consistent pace throughout the 2003 season on the way to his first title, locking it up a week early at Rockingham Speedway.

Kenseth’s season-long statistics jump off the page as the Wisconsinite racked up 11 top-fives, 25 top 10s and a 10.3 average finish that propelled him to stock car immortality.

However, Kenseth’s 2003 campaign generated animosity from fans and NASCAR’s leadership at the time because his lone win came at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the third race of the season in the 36-race schedule.

Before Kenseth even wrapped up the title, newly-minted NASCAR CEO Brian France devised a new points system that sought to replicate the postseason drama present in stick-and-ball sports.

France unveiled “The Chase for the Nextel Cup” at the Dover fall race, a 10-race, 10-driver playoff system where the top-10 drivers in the standings have their points reset after the 26th race of the regular season, allowing those drivers and teams an opportunity to claim the championship.

To understand why France felt this decision was necessary to elevate an already-rising sport, let’s take a look back at Kenseth’s 2002 season to see what happened in that campaign to push them forward into 2003.

Entering Daytona Speedweeks in 2002, Kenseth arrived at Daytona International Speedway with a chip on his shoulder after a miserable sophomore year where the Roush Racing driver finished one spot higher in points from his 2000 Rookie of the Year campaign, but ultimately went winless and notched fewer top 10s.

Although he ultimately led a few laps in the “Great American Race,” the No. 17 team relied on a provisional to make the race after a poor qualifying effort and Daytona Duel. That misery carried over to race day as Kenseth got collected in the “Big One” on Lap 154.

The 2002 Winston Cup season used the Latford system, the 36-race, season-long points system that a lot of NASCAR traditionalists raved about. So, a torn-up No. 17 DEWALT Ford Taurus and a 33rd-place effort to start the season left a sour taste in their mouths.

Another poor qualifying effort at Rockingham the following week threatened to extend Kenseth’s winless drought, starting the day in 25th place.

As soon as the green flag fell in the Subway 400, Kenseth’s march toward the front began, driving by over a dozen cars in the first 50 laps to plant himself firmly in the top 10.

Kenseth hung out in the single digits through green-flag pit stops, but a caution for leader Dale Jarrett’s mechanical failure on Lap 145 brought the field down to pit road, where the “Killer Bees” — the No. 17 team’s super quick pit crew — logged a stellar stop and got their driver the lead.

The fourth-year Cup driver held on to the point for a spell before losing the lead to Sterling Marlin. But after a series of cautions, Kenseth wheeled the DEWALT machine back into the lead until Jeff Green worked him over for the top spot just past the halfway point.

A Dave Blaney spin on Lap 257 allowed the “Killer Bees” to sting again as they swarmed around their Taurus at exceptional speed, gaining their driver the two spots he needed to take back the lead for the restart.

It would be an advantage he would hold for the next 107 laps until Mike Skinner’s No. 4 Kodak Chevrolet brought out the penultimate caution.

While the rest of the field stopped for tires, early-race contender Ricky Craven took command of the Subway 400 with just 24 laps remaining, hoping to hold off the hungry pack of drivers behind him fitted with four fresh tires.

When the race restarted, a quick skirmish with Rusty Wallace dropped Kenseth from second to fifth. The contact gave Marlin a chance to leapfrog both drivers and take the fight to Craven over the final 20 circuits.

Oftentimes, a young driver with little success crumbles under the pressure in these situations, but Kenseth showed that he was truly unflappable.

Once the cars with fresher tires disposed of Craven’s No. 32 Tide Ford, it set up a three-car showdown between Marlin, Bobby Labonte and Kenseth.

The trio tightened up with nine laps to go as Robby Gordon spun in Turn 1 after contact with Ken Schrader. Since Gordon stayed on the apron, the race stayed green, but concerns quickly rose from Marlin’s team that there was debris and fluid on the track.

The calamities caught the veterans off-guard as Kenseth streaked by Labonte the next lap and Marlin coming to seven to go, taking the lead before the final caution waved on Lap 389, which gave the No. 17 team their second career win.

Nowadays, the discourse around this monumental drive from Kenseth would be rife with talk about the playoffs and how a winless driver from the previous season is crashing the party. But, in 2002, it was just a hard-fought victory for an up-and-coming talent at NASCAR’s highest level.

Instead of making up ground on early-season points leader Marlin at Las Vegas, the No. 17 team found itself unable to capitalize on its eighth-place starting spot and came home 14th.

On his 30th birthday, Kenseth started the MBNA America 500 in 32nd place before going on a march through the field that landed him in the lead for portions in the second half of the race. He left Atlanta with his second top five of the 2002 season.

And, for the next four races, Kenseth would not stop rolling.

Another poor qualifying effort saw the No. 17 DEWALT team in provisional territory at Darlington Raceway, just skating by in 34th place. Once the race got going on Sunday, Kenseth picked up the slack from Friday, using quick pit stops from the “Killer Bees” to end the day with an eighth-place finish.

Where Kenseth started at Bristol Motor Speedway is where he finished, as he only knew the sixth place through 500 laps in “Thunder Valley,” with teammate Kurt Busch landing his maiden Cup Series win.

On a stretch of three straight finishes of eighth or better, the Roush squad entered the weekend at Texas Motor Speedway with a chance at seizing the points lead should something happen to the ruthlessly consistent Marlin.

By the time the first caution fell on Lap 36 to check the tires, Kenseth scooped up a dozen spots to move into the top 20 before climbing into the top 10 around Lap 100. Unfortunately, a poor green-flag pit stop from the “Killer Bees” stung them, losing them valuable track position.

Kenseth appeared pedestrian by Lap 200, unable to progress past the early teens. When green-flag pit stops began to cycle through with around 100 laps remaining, Jarrett’s Texas dominance ran dry just like his fuel cell, ending his bid for the victory.

Once everything cycled, the “Killer Bees” made up for their earlier miscue, vaulting the No. 17 Ford from 11th to third when another caution waved for a Robby Gordon spin.

Just as the battle for the lead ratcheted up between Tony Stewart, Rusty Wallace and Kenseth, Ryan Newman’s No. 12 Alltel Ford dropped fluid on the circuit, allowing Stewart and Wallace to pit while the “Killer Bees” remained in their hive.

Jeff Green held on to the runner-up spot for several laps after the restart until Stewart and his fresh tires squeaked by around 60 laps to go, setting up a duel between the two racers.

Though crew chief Robbie Reiser left his driver, Kenseth, on the track with an older set of tires, the young gun proved to be plenty comfortable on his worn rubber, extending his lead to six seconds over the No. 20 car.

A rapid stop for the “Killer Bees” kept the No. 17 DEWALT Ford in front when the field came down during the final caution of the day, with 26 laps to go, for a Kurt Busch spin.

The threat of defending series champion Jeff Gordon breathing down his neck failed to rattle Kenseth over the final 22 laps, motoring to his third career victory and second of the 2002 season.

A fortunate caution on Lap 170 at Martinsville Speedway the following week helped Kenseth and the “Killer Bees” capitalize on an early-race gamble by Reiser that kept the No. 17 Ford in the mix for the rest of the race, coming up one spot short of a second straight victory to Bobby Labonte.

Through eight races, the No. 17 team made a stab at Marlin’s points lead, but the next couple of races knocked them down the standings as the “Big One” developed right in front of him and enveloped his DEWALT Ford at Talladega Superspeedway before a miserable day in Fontana ended in 20th, right where he started.

Rather than let the poor showings beat them down, the No. 17 Roush team logged a solid sixth-place run at Richmond Raceway after initially losing three laps to repairs after the rain delay, before a runner-up effort in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Despite earning the Bud Pole Award at Dover Motor Speedway, an engine change put Kenseth behind the 8-ball, forcing him to comb through the field from the back of the grid.

While he initially made it back to the top 10, disaster struck on Lap 215 when the black and yellow-colored Ford blew a right-front tire in Turn 3 and hit the outside wall, saddling the No. 17 with a 40th-place result.

Mechanical gremlins followed in the next race at Pocono Raceway, forcing them to leave the “Tricky Triangle” in 35th. In just two weeks, Kenseth went from second in the standings, 87 points behind Marlin, to seventh in points, 270 points behind Marlin.

In a position where he needed to respond, Kenseth and Reiser brought a strong piece to Michigan, even if a 20th-place qualifying effort did not show it.

Through 100 laps, Kenseth clawed his way into the top five until a caution for oil with 60 laps to go gave the “Killer Bees” the chance to give their driver good track position, vaulting the No. 17 Ford up to third place.

Kenseth wheeled past Ryan Newman on the restart and stalked Dale Jarrett for a few laps before taking the lead with nearly 100 miles to go.

Just a handful of laps later, rookie Jimmie Johnson scooted by Kenseth for the lead, but the Roush driver stayed right in Johnson’s tire tracks, saving fuel while riding in the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet’s wake.

The final round of green-flag stops was completed with around 10 laps to go, with Kenseth leaping ahead of Johnson because the “Killer Bees” pitted later and spent less time filling the No. 17 DEWALT Ford.

Their fuel-only strategy came under threat when a caution for Elliott Sadler set the field up for a three-lap dash to the finish.

In a true test of mettle, Kenseth fended off the challenges of Newman and Jarrett on the final restart, holding on to claim his third triumph of the year in the first 15 races.

That Michigan victory represented an outlier, as the next month would be riddled with disappointment, with the No. 17 team finishing 30th or worse in three of the next four events.

Sonoma Raceway and the Daytona summer race saw Kenseth lose out to a mechanical issue and then another “Big One,” just like in the Daytona 500 and Talladega. A mediocre day at Chicagoland was followed by one that got away in Loudon.

After leading a race-high 77 laps, Kenseth took the lead from Jarrett on a late restart at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and looked to be scampering away to his fourth win of the year.

However, it was not meant to be. A flat tire on the final restart saw his No. 17 DEWALT/AT&T Broadband Ford drop bars and speed significantly in the waning laps, finishing 33rd, one lap down after leading with 10 laps remaining.

A second trip to Pocono stopped the bleeding, where they came home eighth, while a visit to the Brickyard gave the No. 17 team a boost going into the year’s final stretch with his seventh top five of the 2002 season at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Some of that positive momentum got swept into the sand at Watkins Glen International, where Kenseth’s ambitious move on the inside of Newman in Turn 10 saw the familiar No. 17 DEWALT Ford wheel hop and slide into the kitty litter before Lap 15, putting him a lap down that he would never get back.

Another race in the Irish Hills at Michigan International Speedway failed to put Kenseth back in Victory Lane, but a great top-five effort at Bristol helped point the Roush team back in the right direction.

That is, until the series returned to the “Lady in Black” for the Southern 500, where Kenseth looked to be making a charge into the top 10 before a single-car spin on Lap 235, which caused him to drill the wall and head to the garage.

In a race sponsored by Chevrolet at Richmond, Kenseth’s back was against the wall as he found himself in danger of tumbling out of the top 10 in points. A 25th-place starting spot put more pressure on the then 30-year-old driver as the race went green.

Though he maneuvered his way to the top 20, a blown right-front tire on Lap 69 put the “Killer Bees” to work before they would have liked, giving the field a one-lap advantage over the No. 17 DEWALT Ford.

Kenseth capitalized on a short stint between the fifth and sixth cautions to get by leader Newman, taking his lap back before spending the next 150 laps putting himself back into contention.

Within 50 laps, Kenseth drove all the way up to the top 10.

Just as Kenseth took a peek at the lead, another right-front tire failure knocked them a lap off the pace, but much like the previous time, the No. 17 team earned its lap back and continued its charge toward the winner’s circle.

A slowing Steve Park gave way to a tenacious Kenseth on Lap 249, allowing the third-year racer to take command of the race. When the final caution flew on Lap 274, some crew chiefs changed two tires to put their teams ahead of the top contenders.

Ward Burton held firm at the front of the field for a handful of laps before Newman got alongside him. While those two duked it out side-by-side, Kenseth closed on the top two, and just as Newman squeezed by, Kenseth pounced on him and regained the lead.

One thing stood in the way of Kenseth and his fourth win of the year — his Ford was five laps short of making it to the finish on fuel.

Rather than pit for fuel, the young Wisconsinite stretched his fuel the extra few miles to the start/finish line to shut the Chevys out of their banner race and take home his fifth career victory.

The Richmond triumph kicked off a month of solid showings as the No. 17 bunch netted top 10s at Loudon, Dover and Kansas before losing out on the lead draft during final pit stops to finish 14th at Talladega in October 2002.

A brutal engine failure at Charlotte derailed a top-five run in the making, less than 100 laps away from the finish, and Martinsville refused to give Kenseth the same fortune as the spring, ending a brutal day at the “Paperclip” in 19th.

Races in Atlanta and Rockingham propped the No. 17 team up with top-10 performances before heading out west to tackle Phoenix Raceway in the “Valley of the Sun.”

His first trip to the flat 1-mile oval saw the rookie get swept up in an accident before the 50-lap mark, yet he returned the next year with a lot of pace, rising from 38th to fourth.

Putting down the 28th quickest lap, Kenseth and Reiser faced a grueling 312-mile hike in the heart of the Estrella Mountains.

A perfect pit stop from the “Killer Bees” during the race’s first caution moved the No. 17 DEWALT Ford out of the midpack and into the top 10 by Lap 30. Near the 100-lap mark, Kenseth’s flame-emblazoned ride flashed by his competitors and moved into the top five.

Despite Kenseth taking the point for a few laps during green-flag pit stops, an untimely caution came out, forcing the No. 17 team to climb back up the running order.

Kenseth made his way back up to seventh with 100 laps remaining, and the “Killer Bees” were given a golden opportunity when Christian Fittipaldi brought out the final caution with nearly 50 laps remaining.

Crew chief Reiser noted how the tires fell off all race long and decided to make a bold call, sending his driver out on two fresh right-side tires to finish the race.

The move positioned them in first for what wound up being the final restart of the race.

Kenseth jumped out to a big advantage when the green flag fell for the final time as Rusty Wallace, Jeff Gordon and teammate Kurt Busch found themselves caught in dense traffic.

The field would never see the No. 17’s rear bumper again as Kenseth mashed the throttle down coming out of the last corner to earn his fifth win of the 2002 season, solidifying him as the winningest driver of the season heading into the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

In an attempt to further capitalize on their breakout season, the DEWALT bunch qualified 13th in Miami and hovered around the top 10 in the opening stages of the Ford 400.

On the NBC broadcast, play-by-play announcer Allen Bestwick made a quip about Kenseth while he battled Rusty Wallace on Lap 25.

“I had some people ask me this week, ‘Okay, so if Matt Kenseth has won more races than any other driver this year, how come he’s not leading the championship?’” Bestwick said. “Well, it’s pretty simple. The championship system rewards consistent excellence, and even though Kenseth has won five times, he has 10 finishes worse than 30th place that cost him a shot at the title.”

To make matters worse, Kenseth lost an engine on Lap 224 that brought his total to 11 finishes worse than 30th place, saddling the No. 17 team with an eighth-place finish in the final standings while Tony Stewart defeated Mark Martin to claim his first Cup Series title.

In all, Kenseth ended 2002 with five race victories, 11 top fives, 19 top 10s, 693 laps led, completed 96.3% of total laps run, an average starting position of 18.1, an average finish of 15.6 and three DNFs.

As for the 2002 series champion, Tony Stewart ended 2002 with three wins, 15 top fives, 21 top 10s, 745 laps led, completed 95.2% of total laps run, an average starting position of 13.3, an average finish of 12.6 and six DNFs.

This evidence shows that Stewart beat Kenseth and everyone else in the margins.

Stewart only scored five finishes worse than 30th all year, which began when his engine soured on the second lap of the Daytona 500.

Among the six DNFs are the same “Big One” that took out Kenseth at Talladega in the spring, a late-race crash in the Darlington spring race, a wreck in the Daytona summer race right before the “Big One” that took out Kenseth, another wreck in the summer at New Hampshire when Kenseth flailed late and a broken driveshaft in the Richmond fall race, with four laps to go.

Conversely, Stewart finished 11th in the Dover spring race, seventh in the first Pocono race, second at Sonoma, first at Watkins Glen, eighth in the Southern 500 at Darlington, third at Charlotte and 18th at Homestead, creating a points delta of 597 points in races, where Kenseth finished 30th or worse. Kenseth lost the title by 368 points.

When Kenseth struggled, his title rivals ascended. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how the No. 17 group responded during the 2003 season to the 11 races they finished 30th or worse at the previous year.

2003 Championship Season

Starting with the 2003 Daytona 500, Matt Kenseth avoided the accidents and came home 20th after rain cut the event 91 laps short of completion.

Next up was Talladega, where Jamie McMurray nudged Kenseth out of the path of a twirling heap of metal piloted by Ryan Newman after the Penske driver’s tire gave out on the fourth lap, triggering a 27-car pileup.

While the No. 17 DEWALT Ford Taurus suffered some damage to the right-front fender, the contact failed to put a dent in the car’s speed.

Kenseth coasted in the remaining pack for much of the event before the final round of green-flag pit stops, where crew chief Robbie Reiser threw on two right-side tires for the final run to the checkered flag.

With five laps to go, Kenseth became part of a five-car breakaway and used a great push from Dale Earnhardt Jr. at the start/finish line to slingshot by leader Jimmie Johnson.

Unfortunately, the same man who put him up front would be the same one to hang him out to dry as Earnhardt Jr. made a dive for the bottom entering Turn 3, a move Kenseth tried to block that briefly put the left-side tires of the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet below the yellow line.

Lots of hand-wringing and anxiety filled the broadcast booth as cheers filled the grandstands, as Earnhardt Jr. came away with the victory without a penalty while Kenseth fell back to ninth place.

The first Dover race of the 2002 season saw the No. 17 team earn the pole but start from the rear. But his fourth-place qualifying effort in 2003 allowed him to stay in the front all day, walking home in seventh after evading an early accident between Jeff Gordon and Sterling Marlin.

The following week at Pocono, Kenseth continued a run of consecutive top 10s by grabbing his fifth in a row at the “Tricky Triangle,” nabbing third after climbing from his 25th starting spot into the top 10 within the first 30 laps.

A few races later, the field made their way to the West Coast, where Kenseth put up a great lap time in qualifying that placed the No. 17 Ford toward the front. A series of cautions and poor timing got Kenseth stuck in the mid-20s for much of the day, but they were able to claw their way back to 14th at Sonoma.

Because he was not in the lead draft at the halfway mark, the next week at the Daytona summer race, Kenseth managed to avoid the “Big One” that was kicked off by teammate Kurt Busch losing a tire in Turn 2. When final pit stops took place, Kenseth and teammate Greg Biffle appeared to have the race in hand.

That is, until Bobby Labonte came to wreck the Roush party. Kenseth stuck with Biffle down the backstretch with six laps to go, allowing Labonte to rocket by the No. 17 Smirnoff Ice Triple Black/DEWALT machine and put himself in second.

Ultimately, sticking with his teammate forced Kenseth out of the lead draft, and even if he had kept pace, his fuel tank ran dry, which forced him to pit. The “Killer Bees” got their driver back out quickly enough to salvage a sixth-place showing.

In the first race of the 2003 season at New Hampshire, Kenseth put the No. 17 DEWALT Ford on pole for the first time that year and kept himself in the mix all day as a third-place finish kept his healthy points lead intact.

Watkins Glen played out similarly to Sonoma as Kenseth struggled to fight his way out of the midpack after qualifying well. Contact with rookie Casey Mears with 41 laps to go generated a tire rub on Kenseth’s Ford, provoking him to come to pit road earlier than expected.

A lucky caution for Rusty Wallace’s beached No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge gave the No. 17 bunch a great opportunity to gain a couple of positions to put them back in the top 10. Due to some late mishaps ahead of him, Kenseth drove to the checkers in eighth place, a career-best on road courses.

The next race Kenseth needed to improve upon came at the “Lady in Black.” In the Southern 500, the No. 17 Smirnoff Ice/DEWALT Ford advanced to the front with haste and seemed to have the dominant car of the day until he knocked himself out of the lead on Lap 108 after getting into the Turn 1 wall.

The dreaded “Darlington stripe” stripped some speed out of the car that Reiser was unable to put back into it, so they fell back to 14th when the checkers fell, which was still a significant gain over 2002, when a blown tire ended their day.

Talladega’s full-throttle racing in the fall caused Kenseth’s engine to expire with 30 laps to go, saddling him with his first DNF of the 2003 season, while Kansas offered its own challenges.

Right after the first set of green-flag pit stops, the No. 17 Ford found itself in a battle with the No. 15 NAPA Chevrolet of Michael Waltrip that ended with both cars sustaining heavy front-end contact.

Reiser and the “Killer Bees” refused to be shaken by the controversy as they worked tirelessly to fix up the car and ended the day ahead of seven other cars that wrecked later in the race. Luckily for them, their points lead remained well over a race’s worth of points despite the setbacks.

The Charlotte fall race played host to another one of Kenseth’s rebounds, as the previous two races at Talladega and Kansas saw the No. 17 team show signs of vulnerability for the first time all season.

After just 30 laps at the sport’s capital, the championship leader surged ahead 19 spots into the top 10, and the No. 17 Carhartt/DEWALT Ford managed to stay among the frontrunners for the rest of the night, coming home an encouraging eighth place.

The only race left to capitalize on was Homestead, which ended up being a completely different facility from the one the series had visited the previous year. Still, the issues suffered by the No. 17 team were the same as the DEWALT machine bowed out on Lap 28 with a blown engine.

Normally, a last-place finish in the season finale ends someone’s title hopes, but Kenseth built up such a significant point tally throughout the previous 35 races that he claimed the 2003 Winston Cup title a week early at Rockingham and went into Homestead without a worry in the world.

Comparing the two seasons, Kenseth notched four fewer victories, the same amount of top-fives (11), six more top 10s (25), led nearly half as many laps, improved his average finish by 5.3 positions and, strangely enough, started races 3.2 positions worse than the 2002 season.

Instead of 11 races worse than 30th, Kenseth placed no worse than 10th in all but 11 races.

In all, Kenseth knocked the 30th or worse finishes down to just three over the 36-race schedule. The consistency allowed the Wisconsin native to become just the sixth driver in 29 seasons of the Latford system to earn over 5,000 points in their championship campaign.

The previous 5,000-point club members were Cale Yarborough (1977), Jeff Gordon (1998), Dale Jarrett (1999), Bobby Labonte (2000), and Gordon (2001) again.

What should have been lauded as a masterstroke of consistent excellence was shunned by the media and series executives, leading to the ill-fated creation of “The Chase for the Nextel Cup.”

Announced at Dover in the fall of 2003 by new NASCAR CEO Brian France, “the Chase” allowed for a points reset after the 26th race of the “regular season,” removing everyone below the top 10 in points from continuing to compete for a title over the final 10 races.

The move became colloquially known as the “Matt Kenseth rule”, and instead of celebrating Kenseth’s crowning achievement, it now lives in infamy as the final straw toward the much-maligned playoff format that permeates the sport today.

Even when drivers put up incredible seasons that are worthy of praise in the present day, the current points structure callously casts them aside in favor of which driver can win the most at the right time.

Championship-winning seasons like Kenseth’s in 2003 came so infrequently that folks often forget that there were six drivers in the title fight the year before when Stewart raised the Cup title.

Because of Kenseth’s title in the final year of a full-season points format, we may never see another driver so ruthlessly consistent be adequately rewarded by NASCAR ever again.