Matt Kenseth loves Metallica. If you want to know to what degree, consider that one day he brought a cat home from a shelter to give to his wife, Katie. The cat's name? Lars, after Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich.

Matt Kenseth loves oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. To this day, when he goes home to Cambridge, Wis., his mother will bake them and Kenseth's family as well as some of his old school friends will sit around the living room with cookies in hand.

Matt Kenseth loves to tinker with things. When he was in the fourth grade -- way before a local Wisconsin track announcer dubbed him 'Matt The Brat,' giving Kenseth's sister, Kelley Maruszewsk, the title for the book she eventually wrote about him -- he took apart his parents' riding lawn mower, sport-tuned the engine, changed the gears and rode everywhere on his make-shift race car.

Matt Kenseth loves Dale Earnhardt. He used to watch races wearing nothing but No. 3 gear while his father sat nearby wearing all things Mark Martin. Of course, Kenseth loves Mark Martin, too, since Martin was the guy that first saw enough talent in Kenseth to convince team owner Jack Roush to sign him.

Matt Kenseth loves Robbie Reiser. Sure, the racer and his crew chief were on-track rivals back home in Wisconsin -- but one day when Reiser was running a Busch Series team and needed a driver, he picked up the phone and called on Kenseth. It was during that Busch ride that Kenseth was noticed by Martin; and it is there where Kenseth says he got his big break.

So now you know a little bit about the man who is running away from Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Winston Cup points race. But, mind you, you still only know a little. Some of us know only that much. Most of us can barely scratch the surface.

That's because Kenseth fancies himself a racer. Take it or leave it.

He's uninterested in the commercials that many drivers star in today. He doesn't want to host Saturday Night Live like Jeff Gordon did, or show up at the MTV Music Awards like Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Kenseth spends most of his time thinking about his race car. Whatever time isn't spent on that belongs to his family. Which leaves little for the public. And he likes it that way.

"Some people put themselves right out there, and some people don't," said Kenseth, who has opened up a 234-point lead in the Cup championship race. "I don't want to be on MTV or anything like that. I don't need any of that. I'm happy doing my own thing and letting my racing speak for itself."

	Kenseth, left, and crew chief Robbie Reiser have the No. 17 team atop the Cup standings.

So far, it's spoken volumes.

Kenseth has been a presence in Winston Cup racing since his first start in 1998. That day at Dover, Kenseth drove Bill Elliott's race car so the veteran could attend his father's funeral. In that debut, Kenseth finished sixth and the whispers began.

Though he failed to finish three of the five races he ran in 1999 -- understandable given the equipment he was in -- the effort was meant to prepare him for running with the Cup competition. Still, back at Dover he notched his then-first top-five finish, coming in fourth.

He won rookie of the year in 2000 and, after a sub-par season in 2001, Kenseth came out guns blazing in 2002 and won five races. That was better than any other Cup driver last year.

Still, he finished eighth in the points race, a puzzling distance back from champion Tony Stewart given that Kenseth had won almost twice as many races as Stewart. Staring at the season's final results, he learned a lesson.

"It's still really important (to win) and has a lot of significance, but I think more people are looking toward a championship," Kenseth said. "The main reason I say that is because last year we were able to win five races and had a great year, especially compared to 2001, but the last three weeks with me leading the points I've probably done more interviews than I did the whole year last year winning five races."

Kenseth's No. 17 Ford team has emphasized consistency over victory.

It's a driving style that suits the 31-year-old dad. It's a driving style that his own father made him yearn for. When Kenseth was 13, his dad bought a car for him on one condition: Kenseth would work on it and his dad would race it until he was 16.

Kenseth now laughs when he recalls how his father would tear the car up, leaving Kenseth with hours of work to do before the rig was ready to go again. At the time, though, he remembers wishing his father would bring the thing home in one piece.

That's what he's trying to do, now: Bring that yellow-and-black Ford Taurus home in one piece. And, lord willing, on the lead lap.

Though both Kenseth and Reiser are quick to point out all of the work that goes into a victory -- "That's always our top goal," Reiser says -- neither denies there are some decisions made in the interest of gaining points and winning the title.

These decisions -- as well as a season filled with fortune, both with respect to his car's durability and his ability to miss other drivers' wrecks -- have helped Kenseth post an average finish of 7.4. He has 15 top-10s in 19 races. The four times he finished outside of the top 10 went like this: 12th, 14th, 20th, 22nd.

"All I know is that we are 165 out and that a bad day for Matt is 12th," a somewhat startled four-time champ Gordon said five days after the Tropicana 400. Since then, Kenseth posted another solid effort and Gordon is now 234 points out of first place. Third-place Earnhardt Jr. is 273 points back. Nobody else is closer than 376 points.

And, if Lady Luck continues to ride shotgun, there's no reason to believe Kenseth can't run away with this title. Of the 17 races left, 12 are at tracks the series has already visited this season. Kenseth posted top-10s at 11 of those 12 tracks. He finished top five at seven of them.

	"	It's still really important (to win) and has a lot of significance, but I think more people are looking toward a championship ... the last three weeks with me leading the points I've probably done more interviews than I did the whole year last year winning five races. "
		— Matt Kenseth

And as for the five tracks the circuit hasn't hit this season, Kenseth notched top-10s at three of them last year. He did have problems at the Watkins Glen, N.Y., road course (finished 33rd) and the season-finale at Homestead, Fla. (finished 40th). But whereas Kenseth has often had difficulty at Watkins Glen, Homestead has only been on the schedule for two seasons and the team believes it has figured out how to improve there.

What the 17 crew is less certain about is whether any of the numbers provided above mean anything at all. Kenseth, in particular, is hesitant to entertain what the numbers could be indicating -- that he just might be on his way to winning his first Winston Cup championship.

"I don't know," he said. "I guess that's the $4 million question. I hope we can keep doing it. All you can do is show up every week and do the best job you can. This week I feel real fortunate to get out of here and gain points. I thought we had a good car all day, but the 24 (of Gordon) was really stout all day. I thought it looked like he was either going to win or run second, but I don't know what happened to him there at the end.

"All you can do is go and run as hard as you can every week and try to gather as many points as you can and see how it shakes out at the end of the year. We're not doing anything different than we ever did, things are just falling into place more than what maybe they have in the past."

Another driver was saying those things last year about this time. It was Sterling Marlin, the Dodge driver who led the points race for more than 20 weeks. A couple of misfortunes toward the end of the year dropped him to fifth -- though still within striking distance. Then, an injury to his neck forced him to sit out the final seven races and his most successful attempt at the Cup was ended.

Anything can happen. Mathematically, Gordon could make up 234 points in two races, as unlikely as that seems. These numbers, not the ones before, are the ones Kenseth studies.

"It's so early in the year," Kenseth said. "Yeah, I think about it and, yeah, I look at the points when I get home. ... Can we win? Yes. Will we? I don't know, there's just so many races left."

Seventeen races, to be exact.

And Matt Kenseth loves to race. Sure, he wants to win the title -- if somebody were to give it to him today he'd be on top of the world. But there'd still be 17 races, 17 opportunities to go out and live his dream, that he'd miss out on. Title or no title. That's Matt Kenseth for you.

He's a racer. Take it or leave it.

Rupen Fofaria is a beat writer for The Raleigh News & Observer and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at rfofaria@espnspecial.com.