“Craziest Thing Ever” – Matt Kenseth Reveals the Biggest Challenge of His Final NASCAR Cup Series Season

Published 11/22/2020, 9:43 AM EST

Along with the likes of Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer, another veteran of the sport bid goodbye to the NASCAR Cup Series. Matt Kenseth recently confirmed that his days of racing full-time in NASCAR are over, which ends a season-long stint with Chip Ganassi Racing.

Kenseth’s NASCAR career ran for 20 years. However, there was something that made the 2020 season, his final one, the most unusual season of his entire career. Kenseth recently reviewed his final season, and how he performed.

He expressed that he never imagined running an entire season without practice or qualifying seasons. He certainly missed working with his team and getting the car ready for race day on the basis of inputs from practice and qualifying.

“We didn’t have practice all year, which is the craziest thing ever,” the 2003 Cup Series champion said.

“I never dreamed I would run every single race without getting a chance to get in the car. Work with my team and make changes, and work together and try to get the car better,” Kenseth said further.

Matt Kenseth reviews his performance in 2020

Kenseth joined Chip Ganassi Racing as a replacement for Kyle Larson in the #42 car. He ran 32 races for the team but finished in the top-10 on only two occasions. “I was very disappointed with the results, that I wasn’t able to do better and help the team more,” Kenseth said of his season.

He admitted that he and the team were just not able to find any momentum and make good runs consistently.

“We didn’t get any decent momentum or consistency to build off of, we had competitive runs here and there. We had a little bit of momentum going at times, and other times it felt like we were going backwards,” Kenseth added.

The highlight of Kenseth’s year

One of his good finishes of the year was a second-place finish. Kenseth finished just behind Kevin Harvick at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July. He called it the highlight of his year.

Despite not having a good season personally, Kenseth was part of a memorable season. He witnessed his friend and long-time rival Jimmie Johnson run for the last time. Chase Elliott, with whom Kenseth has spent a lot of time since Chase’s childhood days, won the title this year.

Kenseth now looks forward to spending time with his family. The 48-year-old might be seen racing part-time.

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Aayush Majumdar is a NASCAR content strategist, a Tennis Writer, and a sports analyst at EssentiallySports. He is well-tenured as a tennis and NASCAR writer, with over 900 articles across both sports. After pursuing a Post Graduate program in Sports Management, Aayush explored various roles in Sports Media, including a Sports Reporting role at a leading English daily.