ROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- He's like a John Mellencamp song come alive.

He was raised in a small rural town -- Cambridge, Wis., population 1,101 -- an all-American place with down-home family values, somewhere he looks forward to returning when he needs solitude from it all, right down the road from places like Lake Koshkonong, Deerfield, Edgerton, Fort Atkinson and Waterloo.

He cut his racing teeth at small tracks in and around his native state, becoming a legend at places in semi-exotic locales like Slinger, Hales Corner, LaCrosse, Lake Geneva and Kaukauna.

But Sunday, Matt Kenseth hit the biggest of the big time, clinching his and Roush Racing's first Winston Cup championship at North Carolina Speedway. After years of being a little fish in a big pond, Kenseth is now the biggest kahuna in NASCAR, at least for the next year.

As semi-monotonous as Kenseth's 32-week stranglehold on the top spot atop the Winston Cup standings seemed at times, as much criticism as he received for winning just once this season (with one final chance to add to that total next Sunday in the season finale at Homestead, Fla.), as much has been said about his seemingly staid and even-keel personality, the fact is Kenseth earned this championship in one of the most difficult ways possible.

"I feel a lot lighter today," Kenseth admitted after Sunday's Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 at North Carolina Speedway. "I feel like the world has lifted off my shoulders somewhat.

"It's a little overwhelming, when you sit and think about it. There's only 43 of us that get to do it every week. It's the top division of stock car racing anywhere in the world. When you can win races there and can have everything go right over a 36-race schedule and can win a championship, that's a really special thing.

"Every name on there that I get to join (on the Winston Cup trophy) is a really great race car driver, people I've looked up to and have been sports idols of mine. It's a little overwhelming to think about yet, but it's really an honor to even be part of this sport, much less to be its champion."

	Kenseth with his new trophy in Victory Lane.

While he was practically a stranger to Victory Lane in 2003, Kenseth proved the old sports axiom -- which might be more relevant in auto racing than perhaps any other sport -- that consistency does indeed win championships. Kenseth might not have dominated the wins column, but he wound up possessing an uncanny knack of doing enough performance-wise race after race to get ahead and stay ahead.

"To some people it does (seem to be a big deal), but to me it doesn't," Kenseth quipped.

But there's a deep dark secret about Kenseth's championship-clinching win Sunday. It almost didn't happen. When he raced in the Busch Series in 1997 and 1998 for the team owned by crew chief Robbie Reiser, the organization was so cash-strapped that it nearly was forced to close up shop. Had that happened, it's quite likely Kenseth would not be in the spot he is in today, and that he wouldn't have caught the eye of Mark Martin (who actually brought Kenseth to team owner Jack Roush's attention and is also a part-owner of the No. 17 Ford).

"Before Robbie called me to drive his Busch Series car, I felt like my time was past," Kenseth said. "I was like 26 years old at the time and had another deal that didn't work out. I figured it was back to Wisconsin to drive an ASA car. I never (thought) I'd have a chance, to be honest with you."

Like fellow Wisconsin native, the late Alan Kulwicki, Kenseth proved that not all of the best NASCAR drivers hail from the Deep South or, in the case of 2002 champ Tony Stewart and four-time champ Jeff Gordon, from Indiana. As Kulwicki did in 1992, Kenseth showed this season that America's Dairyland grows more than corn or breeds more than cows and pigs, it also produces some damn good race car drivers.

"It's kind of a weird thing. I didn't know Alan at all and never met him ... but that he's also from Wisconsin is kind of cool," Kenseth said.

And now Kenseth himself is pretty cool, winning the last Winston Cup championship, with hopes of repeating next season as the first Nextel Cup champ.

A lot of irony surrounded Kenseth and Rockingham coming into Sunday's event. It was the site of his first Busch Series win (1997). It was the site of teammate Mark Martin's and Roush Racing's first respective Winston Cup win (1989).

It was also the place Kenseth hoped to finally end the championship chase.

"This is a really cool place to do it at," Kenseth said. "Even though we were way ahead, I was hoping this would be the place where we'd wrap it up."

He added to that irony Sunday. He made his Winston Cup debut in 1998 (albeit at Dover, Del.), substituting for Bill Elliott, and then clinched his first Cup championship in a race that Elliott won.

"Matt's a heck of a kid," Elliott said. "He did a great job for me at Dover. Ever since, I've watched and kept up with him and always respected and admired what he's done."

A lot was said after Tony Stewart won last year's Winston Cup championship, that he would be too brash for the NASCAR establishment, that he might not be a role-model-type figurehead that the sanctioning body would like to promote, given some of the run-ins Stewart has had in the past. Fortunately, none of those fears were ever realized and Stewart proved to be a formidable champion during his one-year reign.

	"	Before Robbie (Reiser) called me to drive his Busch Series car, I felt like my time was past. I was like 26 years old at the time and had another deal that didn't work out. I figured it was back to Wisconsin to drive an ASA car. I never (thought) I'd have a chance, to be honest with you. "
		— Matt Kenseth

Now Kenseth will wear the champion's ring for the next season, signifying he's the best of the best ... and the perfect kind of reigning figurehead for new series sponsor Nextel to promote the heck out of in the coming months.

But make no mistake about it, there won't be any sudden changes in the Kenseth household, other than the bright, gleaming new addition to his trophy case back home in tiny little Cambridge.

"It's not going to change me one iota," Kenseth said firmly. "I don't think there's any award or trophy or anything I could win that would make me feel different. I may have more of a certain sense of accomplishment for something, but it's not going to change at all the way I live day to day or what I do or don't do."

Finally, after admitting that he had to deal with stomach problems while battling all the pressure-filled questions that kept mounting over the last couple of months about when -- or even if -- he was going to win the championship, Kenseth can finally relax and go for a leisurely drive in next Sunday's season finale. The hard work is behind him, with lots of celebration and good times ahead.

"Even though everybody said they thought I was a shoo-in these last two races, I don't count on it until they say it's over and official," Kenseth said. "Anything can happen and sometimes it seems like if it can, it happens to us.

"I don't think I'm a pessimist, but I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch."

Sunday, those chickens, like the ones back home in Cambridge, not only hatched, they came home to roost over the big time of NASCAR racing.

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Motorsportwriter@MSN.com.