Geoff Burke / Getty Images for NASCAR

Matt Kenseth celebrates winning the Daytona 500 on Sunday.

"But to be able to come down and do it the way he wanted to do it and win a championship was pretty cool, when you knew that was the first Wisconsin guy to come down from the north and win a NASCAR championship. So that was something pretty big in the state and certainly something that I paid attention to."

Kenseth grew up in Cambridge in a simple, non-descript home. Like a typical kid, he had posters of his favorite NASCAR drivers on his bedroom walls and dreamed of one day being a full-time race car driver.

But never in his wildest dreams did he think he'd one day wind up winning the sport's biggest and most important race.

"When you grow up in Wisconsin, Daytona seems a long, long, long ways away," Kenseth said. "I used to watch Daytona all the time, the Busch Clash (now the Budweiser Shootout) and the Daytona 500.

"I was fascinated with cars and engines and speed and competition and all that but really didn't think I'd ever get a chance to do this for a living. Until about an hour ago, I never really thought I'd win the Daytona 500, either."

Cambridge still takes great pride in calling Kenseth one if its own. Nor has Kenseth forgotten Cambridge. He still owns a house there, and he and wife Katie spend much of their offseason there — he says it's their favorite place to get away from racing.

Next to racing and his family, Kenseth's biggest love is the NFL's Green Bay Packers. He's a die-hard fan, through and through.

That's why there's a certain irony that Kenseth on Sunday won a race that is called NASCAR's Super Bowl in a year when his beloved Packers didn't even make the playoffs.

After all the years he has spent cheering the Packers, it's time for them to cheer Kenseth back.

"I'm looking forward to people calling me the Daytona 500 champion," he said. "It's pretty awesome."