page_title: 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
hierarchical_section_title: 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
caption_attribution_description: NASCAR driver en:Matt Kenseth at en:Bristol Motor Speedway in 2007.
context_page_description: The 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup Series was the 55th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 32nd modern-era Cup Series season. The season began on February 8 at the Daytona International Speedway with the Budweiser Shootout and ended on November 16 at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the Ford 400. Despite only winning one race throughout the whole season, Matt Kenseth, driving the No.17 Ford for Roush Racing, was strongly consistent following the lone win, and was crowned the Winston Cup champion. His only win came in the third race of the 36 race season. Chevrolet took home the NASCAR Manufacturers' Championship after capturing 19 wins and 264 points over second-place finisher Dodge, who had nine wins and 203 points. Ford finished the year third with seven wins and 200 points, and Pontiac finished fourth with one win and 125 points.
  This was the final year for Winston being the title sponsor of the Cup Series. Winston had been the title sponsor for NASCAR since 1971. After 33 years, Winston decided not to renew its sponsorship.
context_section_description: The 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup Series was the 55th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 32nd modern-era Cup Series season. The season began on February 8 at the Daytona International Speedway with the Budweiser Shootout and ended on November 16 at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the Ford 400. Despite only winning one race throughout the whole season, Matt Kenseth, driving the No.17 Ford for Roush Racing, was strongly consistent following the lone win, and was crowned the Winston Cup champion. His only win came in the third race of the 36 race season. Chevrolet took home the NASCAR Manufacturers' Championship after capturing 19 wins and 264 points over second-place finisher Dodge, who had nine wins and 203 points. Ford finished the year third with seven wins and 200 points, and Pontiac finished fourth with one win and 125 points.
  This was the final year for Winston being the title sponsor of the Cup Series. Winston had been the title sponsor for NASCAR since 1971. After 33 years, Winston decided not to renew its sponsorship. NASCAR went to work to find a sponsor immediately, and on June 19, 2003, NASCAR announced that the telecommunications firm Nextel would be the new title sponsor of the Cup Series starting in 2004. This was also the final season for Unocal's 76 Brand as the official fuel for NASCAR. Unocal had been the official fuel since the sport's inception in 1948. Sunoco would replace Unocal 76 as the official fuel of NASCAR. This was also the last full-time season for Pontiac. Pontiac had been with NASCAR on 2 different occasions. The first was from 1949 to 1964, then they returned in 1981 and continued full-time until the end of 2003, though a few teams ran Pontiacs on a limited basis in 2004, and they continued running in the Busch Series through 2005 and ARCA as late as 2007.
  Also, 2003 was the first Cup Series season without Bobby Hamilton since 1988, This was also the last season without Carl Edwards until 2017 and for Kasey Kahne until 2019, and also was the last season before the future NASCAR Cup champions Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. joins as NASCAR drivers.
  In addition, NASCAR instituted a new points system after this season entitled the Chase for the Cup, in which after 26 races, all the points standings in the top ten as well as any position within 400 points of the lead, would be reset, so the drivers in those positions would be eligible for the championship.  This was done primarily because of the huge lead Kenseth accumulated during 2003 despite winning one race.
caption: Matt Kenseth, the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion.
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