The Superstar Racing Experience will have a new face adorning an orange, white and black firesuit this weekend at Nashville (Tenn.) Fairgrounds Speedway.
Matt Kenseth, who will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in January, will compete in the final three races on the SRX schedule aboard the No. 5 Camping World machine.
Kenseth, who’s most known in the NASCAR Cup Series for piloting the No. 17 Dewalt Ford or the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota, agreed the number may require some adjustment.
“I don’t think I’ve ever drove a number five, so that’ll be a first for me,” Kenseth said.
While this weekend’s race at Nashville comes at a track where Kenseth has made plenty of laps in late models, the final two SRX events will be run on dirt at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 in Missouri and Sharon Speedway in Ohio.
“I’ve never raced on dirt. The only dirt stuff I’ve ever done was the Prelude to the Dream that Tony (Stewart) used to do at Eldora,” Kenseth said. “So I’ve done that a few times. We definitely tried to race, but obviously it’s more exhibition probably then racing.”
When it comes to the all-star nature of SRX competition, Kenseth was a frequent competitor in the International Race of Champions, which ceased operations in 2006.
Though he’s excited to race against former competitors from the NASCAR Cup Series, the 2004 IROC champion is looking forward to competing against drivers from other motorsports disciplines.
“I mean, obviously, it has a lot of similarities to the old IROC series, which I always really enjoyed racing in, because you could race against a lot of guys that you weren’t on the track with,” Kenseth said. “It’s fun to go back and race with Greg (Biffle), Ryan (Newman) and Tony (Stewart) and the guys you’re familiar with. But it’s also really fun to go race against people that you’re not familiar with, that have had a lot of success in different forms of motorsports. So that’s the part that’s always the most interesting thing to me.
“I remember I thought it was the coolest thing ever, I got to race with Steve Kinser when he came back and raced in the IROC series. Watching him win all them sprint car races, and how famous he was and how good he was at all that kind of stuff. It’s fun to race against them all, don’t get me wrong, but certainly it’s more intriguing, I think, to race against some of the people that you have never shared a race track with.”
Kenseth comes into the final stretch of summer competition in SRX with a lot of unknowns. Most notably, the unknown of what the Ray Evernham-designed race car is like on the track.
Despite having conversations with other drivers about the series itself, the handling of the race car will be new for Kenseth when he first hits the track for practice on Friday.
“I’ve talked with some drivers about their experiences, things like that, but we haven’t really gotten into any details necessarily very much about how the cars drive,” Kenseth said. “I talked to Greg (Biffle) for a fair amount of time before Slinger (Speedway) last year, and a little bit afterward. But haven’t really got into too much for details about that stuff.”
As he irons out the details through practice and the two heat races over the weekend, Kenseth will be looking to find a good balance before the main event.
Since he was elected into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on May 4, Kenseth has had a fair amount of time to process the achievement.
However, the 39-time Cup Series winner still isn’t sure if it’s truly sunk in yet.
“I don’t know, they announced it in May or whatever it was, certainly it was really neat and a big honor,” Kenseth said. “Especially when I look at the list of all the people that were nominated. There’s, in my opinion, people on that list that are probably more deserving than me. It’s a big honor to be in there. I mean, obviously, if the sport that you’re involved in has a Hall of Fame, that’s where you want to end up someday. It’s neat, I’m looking forward to all the festivities in January, and to be a part of that pretty elite group, that’s pretty neat.”
As Kenseth went down memory lane regarding his most-cherished racing memories, he couldn’t help but think back to some of the most heartbreaking moments.
One of those moments happened in 2016 when Kenseth led 40 laps in the Daytona 500, including the white flag, before it ended up in shambles.
“Unfortunately, some of the most painful things are the things that stick with you the most, so I still wake up, having nightmares about losing the Daytona 500, I guess it was 2016,” Kenseth said. “Going into Turn 3 on the last lap trying to block Denny (Hamlin) and messing that all up, and going from leading the whole race, to, I don’t know where the heck we finished, 16th (14th) or something like that, trying to make sure I stayed in front of him. Just a terrible block. It’s funny, you think about 10 seconds in time, right, and you have more misery over that than a lot of the great things that happened in 20-some years.”
Kenseth said one of his fondest NASCAR memories was winning his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race for independent team owner Robbie Reiser at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway in 1998.
“It was a super-exciting finish, we were at the last corner, last lap, passed Tony (Stewart) for the win,” Kenseth recalled. “Didn’t really have a sponsor on our car, it was with Robbie’s (Reiser) family team. Everybody that worked at the shop had to go over the wall. It was just a really cool group. We weren’t expected to win. We didn’t even expect to win. Robbie says he did, but he’s lying. You could never, ever replace that day.”
The two-time Daytona 500 winner believes winning anything in the sport for the first time, makes for a special accomplishment.
“When you win your first Cup race, first Daytona 500, first championship, things like that,” Kenseth said. “I think when you do something for the first time, at that level, those are always the ones that kind of get burned into your memory the most.”
When Kenseth was asked if he misses full-time racing and having a set schedule, he affirmed he has no intentions of competing at a high level of motorsports full-time.
“The honest answer is no. I’m really not,” Kenseth said. “I’m pretty happy, we just got done with our big six-week family vacation, which is great. We just got home a couple days ago. I am really looking forward to running these three SRX races, and the Slinger Nationals here next week as well. I am looking forward to that. I am not looking for a set schedule or to be a professional race car driver again. That ship has sailed.”
Kenseth, an eight-time Slinger Nationals winner (most all-time), reiterated his excitement level as he embarks on a new experience.
“But this is definitely intriguing,” Kenseth continued. “I think it’ll be a lot of fun. I think it’ll be very competitive. I think you’re going to have to bring your A-game to be able to compete with all of these guys. You can see when you watch on TV, they all race extremely hard. It’s definitely nothing staged about it. They are racing really, really hard. So I know that it’s going to be very competitive. That’ll be fun for me to get in there and challenge myself and see how I can do.”