DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- One day before the Daytona 500, Matt Kenseth confided in his wife Katie that he was tired of no longer being a serious title contender on NASCAR's premier series, and harbored no illusions about his chances in the sport's biggest race. On the morning of the Daytona 500, Jack Roush woke up feeling pessimistic as always, those two decades of close calls and near misses on the big race track engrained in his bones.

“

I'll be black and blue for the next couple of days just pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming.

”

JACK ROUSH

So how strange it was to see Kenseth and Roush standing together Sunday night in Daytona International Speedway's Victory Lane, flanking a Harley J. Earl trophy glistening from moisture and television lights, their clothes soaked by a mixture of rainfall and champagne. Kenseth, the driver who questioned his own abilities on a restrictor-plate race track, and went winless all of last season? Roush, the car owner whose triumphs have been eclipsed by his heartbreaks, and went without a victory in NASCAR's marquee event for 20 years?

Yet there they were, surrounded by joyous crewmen, with broad, almost unbelieving smiles on their faces and little pieces of confetti sticking to their rain-soaked shoes. Kenseth passed Elliott Sadler on the final green-flag lap, Aric Almirola spun to bring out a caution, skies that had threatened all day finally opened, and two men who figured they had little chance of winning the crown jewel of stock-car racing somehow wound up champions.

"We've been here for more than 20 years trying to do this thing, and I've been so conditioned to being frustrated through it, that I was almost not believing it happened," Roush said. "I'll be black and blue for the next couple of days just pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming."

Kenseth can relate. He never dreamed of actually winning the Daytona 500, not even as a kid. "When you grow up in Wisconsin, Daytona seems a long, long way away," said the native of Cambridge, Wis. He'll admit, he didn't wake up Sunday believing the Daytona 500 was his for the taking. Not after going winless for only the second time in his Cup Series career last season, not after going two years without seriously contending for the series crown. For a past champion, the relative lack of success was weighing on him, he told his wife a day earlier in their motorhome. He wasn't whining, but just being his usual, realistic self. (Continued)