Saturday night at Madison International Speedway in Oregon, Wis., might be a priceless moment in time for the Kenseth family. But then again, it might spark a rebirth of the TV cult classic Family Feud.

Matt and Roy Kenseth

“

My dad and the other guys spend a lot of time pumping Ross up, so I'm usually the guy that has to deflate him a little bit.

”

-- MATT KENSETH

About a month ago, Cup driver Matt Kenseth went home to Wisconsin, where he blazed a decent late model racing career before moving to NASCAR's national level.

The week of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, Kenseth won the legendary Slinger Nationals at the Wisconsin short track, Slinger Speedway, but it wasn't a big leaguer coming home for a one-shot cherry-picking.

At Slinger that night, Kenseth became the only man to win five Nationals, meaning he's won more than Dick Trickle, more than Joe Shear, more than Alan Kulwicki, more than Mark Martin, and definitely more than a few other Midwest legends like Rusty Wallace, Mike Eddy and Bob Senneker, who never even won the thing.

That's a big deal.

And you want the icing on the cake? Kenseth's 16-year-old son Ross, who's actually made a quantum leap in performance this season on the Midwestern late model circuit, won the limited late model division's support race for his first Slinger victory.

Now think about that scenario. For a racing father who's reached the pinnacle of his profession and is helping along a son who's been properly influenced enough to want to race -- and then begins to excel at it -- well, it just can't get any better than to win a big race yourself. But for the level he's at, for your son to equal the feat, at a high-profile track, with you there to see it -- that's pretty special.

"He's been doing pretty well and he's won some pretty big races this year that I haven't been able to be at, but it was neat for him to win that race because it was only his third time at Slinger," Kenseth said. "The first two times didn't go so well because the first, everyone ran into him and the second, he got black-flagged for running into somebody, which he knows I don't condone running over people -- that's one of my only rules for him.

"To come back and win it, the same night we were there and with the big crowd that was there for the Nationals was really cool. I didn't really ask him what he thought about it, there was a lot going on -- but certainly it was cool for him because I was there, and his first couple weeks there, he struggled. And with me winning I'm sure he felt there were more eyes on him so for him to win couldn't have been cooler, or scripted any better."

“

I watch him do, just little, subtle things that maybe people wouldn't even notice, that took me years to learn that he learns in three weeks.

”

-- MATT KENSETH

But still, in typical Kenseth fashion, Matt had gone low key in his description.

"It was a huge deal," Slinger's public relations/marketing manager Todd Thelen said.

So the cool factor has a chance to get even better, and the sly sides of Matt Kenseth come out in full effect, when he was asked about what he'd heard, this season, about his son's racing progress.

"I get a lot of feedback about Ross and I do a lot of checking from a lot of sources on how things are going when I'm not there, because my dad's story is not always the accurate story, you know what I mean?" Kenseth said. "So you try to get a lot of feedback from a lot of people."

Was he implying any grandfatherly bias? How could that be?

"I end up being the bad guy more than the good guy," Kenseth said. "In my dad's eyes, Ross can't do anything wrong [and] he loves racing with Ross more than he liked racing with me. So when I'm there I kind of got to be the more objective one and give Ross some constructive criticism or pointers.

"My dad and the other guys spend a lot of time pumping him up, so I'm usually the guy that has to deflate him a little bit."

Surprisingly, Kenseth, the 2003 Cup champion, said his son shows more promise than he did at the same age.

"The thing with Ross is he's such a quick learner," Kenseth said. "I watch him do, just little, subtle things that maybe people wouldn't even notice, that took me years to learn that he learns in three weeks. So it's fun for me to watch him learn.

"I know he's in good stuff, but it's not really better stuff than the top guys he's trying to beat. And to watch him pick up on things is probably the most fun for me, and I think him being such a quick learner has led to his success.

"We'll go to a new track that maybe took me a long time to get running good at, that I struggled at and I just watch him and maybe he's getting into a corner wrong, and before I even say anything, three or four laps later he gets it and he'll pick up two-tenths [of a second].

And truth be told, that might lead to a little nervousness on dad's part, because if favoritism does rule in the Kenseth realm, it could affect things when the Kenseths, father and son, go man-to-man in limited late models on Saturday night, at a twin 50's program at Madison International Speedway, during the Cup Series' final off weekend of the season.

"That should be pretty fun, because my dad's promoting the races and he's tried to set that up for a long time -- I think he's setting me up to fail," Kenseth said. "But he's been wanting us to race against other for a long time, but that's the first time we'll be in the same kind of car."

The last time the Kenseth clan was at a track together, Matt said it was the perfect respite for him in what's been a trying season, despite beginning with consecutive wins at Daytona and California.

"I got to hang out with him for the week and work with him back and forth through the [Slinger] practices," Kenseth said. "I had a lot of fun doing that and it was a nice [two-day] break. I had a lot of fun and I kind of needed that."

With his string of five consecutive seasons of making the Chase in jeopardy, sitting in 12th position in the 12-man race and with two races remaining after he races his son, Kenseth might be craving all the fun he can find.

Wins: Thru Bristol

	2008	2009
Cup Series	8	4
Nationwide	6	6
Truck Series	3	3

Kyle Busch Victory Watch

Busch's emotional meltdown in the aftermath of the Carfax 250 Nationwide race at Michigan, followed by his remarkable, two-for-three comeback last weekend at Bristol proves why you just can't abandon hope of him eclipsing his 2008 record total of 21 wins (8 Cup, 10 Nationwide, 3 Truck).

Busch's breakdown at Michigan was appalling, but he proved he could move beyond it by manning-up when Chase Austin made a ridiculous mistake in the Food City 250, wrecking Busch, after which Busch chose to console the rookie rather than berate him.

Busch broke a 16-race winless slump by taking the Sharpie 500 and was calm and constructive with crew chief Steve Addington throughout. And he defended his title in the O'Reilly 200 three days earlier, moving him to 13 wins: 4 Cup, 6 Nationwide, 3 Truck. Last year at this point Busch had 17, but this time around, his Truck and Nationwide efforts are just as strong, while his Cup team appears revitalized, just when it needed it most.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.