Roush Racing Driver Diary: Matt Kenseth

Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Hi everyone,

Alright… I know it’s been awhile but we’ve been extremely busy with media for the Chase over the past couple weeks. I’m sure some of you probably saw us on Letterman or Regis & Kelly. That was pretty cool.

NASCAR takes the top-10 drivers to New York City the week after the cutoff to do a bunch of media. Now, I’m not a big fan of New York, it’s OK to stay there for a couple of days, but I’d much rather go to my cabin in Wisconsin like I did this week instead.

Anyway, I got to be on David Letterman, which is something I’ve always wanted to do, but I only got to shake his hand after we did the top-10 list. It really wasn’t what I thought it would be, but it was still a neat opportunity. Now, if I could have just gotten a better line… No. It was all in good fun and I believe you have to be able to laugh at yourself. It was by far the funniest line, I thought.

Then on Thursday morning, I got to hit a TV talk show host in the face with 17 pies in under a minute. We went on Regis & Kelly and I guess it was Guinness World Record week or something. They had some guy backstage with a sword and then “The Rock” was on, although I’m not sure what kind of record he was trying to break.

Our deal was the top-five drivers were going to throw pies at Kelly, Regis, and three producers and try to break to World Record, which was 15 pies to the face in one minute. I paired up with Kelly and right before we started she came up and explained how competitive she is and that she wanted the record. She did help out the best she could by wiping off her goggles and leaning into the throw; much better than Regis who kept ducking Kyle Busch’s throw. Together we broke the record. I hit her with 17 pies and actually ran out with about three or four seconds to go. They gave me a certificate, framed stating what record I had broken, which was pretty cool.

But, I didn’t realize what Kelly meant by wanting the record until the next day I found out she went on Friday morning and broke my record by hitting some guy with 24 pies. So… oh well. I was in the Guinness Book of World Records for one day, which I guess is more than some people can say. But, they hold records for so many things maybe I can find some other record to break that’s a little more practical than hitting people in the face with pies… although, I must admit, I had a lot of fun doing it.

Have a great week!

~Matt