Matt Kenseth rounding into role with Legacy Motor Club: ‘The timing was right’

When Matt Kenseth arrived to pick up John Hunter Nemechek for a Saturday carpool up to Martinsville Speedway earlier this month, birthday festivities for 3-year-old Aspen Nemechek were in progress. Party attendee and fellow Cup Series driver Kyle Busch asked Nemechek, “Who’s that?” as he pulled up.

Any calling card could have worked to answer the “Who’s that?” question. A former NASCAR Cup Series champion, a two-time Daytona 500 winner, or – pulling from more recent history – a NASCAR Hall of Famer. But that chilly springtime weekend, Kenseth’s driving duties as Nemechek’s ride-share were significantly less glamorous.

“I was like, that’s what I’m relegated to is being an Uber driver up to Martinsville,” Kenseth said, days after the trip. “So I was going to actually offer Kyle to jump in, but I was going to make him pay, and I knew he would have never done that.”

Kenseth hasn’t lost any zip off his dry-humor fastball. The deadpan delivery that was part of his fabric during his driving days is still a trademark in his recent return to the sport with Legacy Motor Club, where the 52-year-old signed on last fall as a competition advisor for the team, co-owned by his good friend and seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson.