Kallmann: Matt Kenseth is going into the NASCAR Hall of Fame and it just feels strange

This one’s different.

With Alan Kulwicki, his selection for the NASCAR Hall of Fame was more about the never-to-be-duplicated story of his NASCAR career than it was about the numbers.

Plus, he’d been on the cusp for a couple of years, a finalist before being elected as part of the 2019 class, 27 years after Kulwicki won his championship and 26 after he died.

You would have had to begun following racing at a young age or be at least in your 60s to have seen firsthand what got Kulwicki from karting through local and regional cars and finally to NASCAR. If you’re younger you may have read of his intelligence and hardheadedness, but you really didn’t experience that when he raced at Hales Corners or Slinger or in the days before he packed up and left Greenfield for the sport’s epicenter in North Carolina.

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Matt Kenseth came along a generation later.

If you caught the end of Kulwicki’s career, you might have seen the earliest part of Kenseth’s, maybe his first victory at Columbus 151 Speedway in 1988 or his rise on the Wisconsin short tracks.

But if you came along a decade later, you still could have seen his rise to champion. If you only discovered NASCAR in the 20-teens you could have watched Kenseth in what statistically were some of his best years. Perhaps you saw him in a local race last year.

Perspective affects view.

So when Kenseth delivers his speech Friday evening at the NASCAR Hall of Fame as his home state’s second inductee, who will you see?

A 50-year-old retiree in a suit? A veteran racer trying to help right a struggling team? A not-yet-40 driver hoisting a Daytona 500 trophy for the second time in three years?

Or maybe a bashful 25-year-old thankful to have a job driving race cars but unsure about all that went with that.

For some reason, that’s the vision that keeps popping into my head. I see Kenseth standing in a makeshift Busch Series garage area at the Milwaukee Mile, hands in his pockets, trying to make conversation with a familiar reporter who was just as confused about how this was supposed to work at a new level.

So, yeah, it’s still hard to grasp that that Matt Kenseth is a Hall of Famer, even with slam-dunk credentials.

It’s just … different.

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“Being that I saw him from the first time he came to Slinger at 18 years old, it was absolutely memorable,” said Todd Behling, the longtime track announcer at Slinger Speedway and host of the “LTN Hour” radio show.

“I had been the announcer there, in my fifth year when he showed up. And I knew what to expect out of the drivers at Slinger, who were good drivers, who were bad drivers, who were guys who were over their heads, who were guys that should have been better but weren’t. Here this kid shows up. … At that time 18 was just a baby, and he was running with Lowell Bennett and with Al Schill and Conrad Morgan and Robbie Reiser and just getting by them. I couldn’t believe what I was watching.

“I always felt like that kind of exceptional talent … that’s what you want to be a successful NASCAR driver. I said that. I used to say that over and over. I always expected it, but you have to play the hand you’re dealt before you get to that point. And the cards fell into place, and I’ll be damned, here he is winning races and a championship.

“I felt like he was capable from the first time I saw him, but the expectation of actually getting that far is unlikely and yet it happened before our eyes. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

In the game of NASCAR, a good starting hand can turn into a loser in a flash.

If old rival Robbie Reiser doesn’t put him in a Busch car, then Kenseth doesn’t get to show him what he can do at the proverbial next level when he did. If he doesn’t win in a not-really-sponsored car in the second race of 1998, then maybe the team doesn’t make it. If Kenseth doesn’t leave Roush Racing for Joe Gibbs Racing – the year after winning the Daytona 500 for the second time – maybe his career ends a dozen victories earlier.

Kenseth has said over the years that he never considered himself to be anything particularly special, just someone who was surrounded by the right people and the right opportunities.

It’s true that many drivers with great talent never get a chance to prove it and that some with lesser skills advance further than they deserve. That’s part of the game, too, but Kenseth played his hand well.

That kid from Cambridge – “Matt the Brat,” Behling nicknamed him, to Kenseth’s continued dismay – went on to win the 2003 championship and 39 Cup races, including two Daytona 500s.

He also came out of his shell. Usually reserved, Kenseth allowed his quick and often sarcastic sense of humor to show.

After winning the 2009 Daytona 500, he deadpanned, “Going to New York tomorrow night and paint the town plaid,” to a local columnist who six years earlier had described him as boring.  And last season while serving as an analyst for a Fox broadcast, Kenseth cracked wise with Joey Logano, the driver Kenseth intentionally wrecked in 2015, an incident that led a two-race suspension.

That Logano encounter may be the most indelible memory of Kenseth for some fans. Such a blatant payback stands out all that much more when it comes from a driver who made his mark on the sport so quietly.

Kenseth is tied for 21^st on the all-time victory leaders list. Only four of those ahead of him are not in the Hall of Fame, and that’s because they’re still active. (Side note: One of those is Jimmie Johnson, whose 83 victories and seven titles include six races and two championship chases in which Kenseth finished second.)

Below Kenseth on that list are 15 drivers who have already been enshrined plus one, Herschel McGriff, who’ll go into the Hall of Fame on Friday with him and crew chief Kirk Shelmerdine.

So the numbers don’t lie. Kenseth absolutely belongs in the Hall of Fame.

It’s just a little strange for some of us to think of him being there with the likes of Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. It’s probably strange to Kenseth, as well.

“I wish I could have seen Matt and Alan race against each other. I think that would have been pretty neat,” Behling said. “On the other hand, it’s a perfect example of turning the page.”

Turns out the Hall of Fame is where they'd finally cross paths.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kallmann: Matt Kenseth going into NASCAR Hall of Fame feels strange