Matt Kenseth Claims Rick Hendrick’s Rejection Ended His Career Following Bitter Joe Gibbs Racing Exit
NASCAR
Matt Kenseth is undoubtedly one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. He won his first Cup Series title in 2003, driving for Roush Fenway Racing.
Unfortunately, he had a bitter end to his Cup Series career following an exit from Joe Gibbs Racing. Moreover, he claimed Rick Hendrick’s rejection actually ended his career.
Matt Kenseth’s career trajectory
In 2000, Jack Roush hired Kenseth to become one of their drivers, which changed his career, as he won the 2003 Cup Series title. After driving for Roush Fenway Racing for nearly 13 years, he joined JGR in 2013, replacing Joey Logano. However, he was dropped from the JGR line-up in 2018. Although he tried to drive for HMS, it did not work out in the end.
Kenseth talks about not getting opportunities after JGR
Kenseth recently appeared on the ‘Dale Jr Download’ podcast, where he said, “Well there was a few. The Gibbs thing didn’t happen, and then honestly Rick fired Kasey (Kahne). So I went and talked to Rick, almost groveled and be like, “Hey, I don’t care what you pay me, I don’t care how long the thing is…I’ll drive for one year, I’ll do whatever you want. I just want a chance to go and prove I can still do it.” I was obviously extremely motivated at the time.”
Speaking about Hendrick’s rejection, Kenseth said, “You know that didn’t happen, and that was really about it. There’s maybe one other one, it didn’t quite kind of work out. And then I had several other offers to do stuff, but none of them were going to be nearly as good as what I was doing. And I didn’t want to take a big step backwards.”
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