Rockingham, N.C. ? The pressure that has been Matt Kenseth’s constant companion for the past few months is gone.

“I feel like the world has been lifted off my shoulders today,” Kenseth said Sunday after a fourth-place finish in the Pop Secret 400 clinched his long-anticipated Winston Cup championship.

Kenseth took the points lead in the fourth race of the season and kept it the rest of the way. He said the tension kept building even as he moved out to what seemed to be an untouchable lead.

“I kind of spun out in August and September a little bit reading everybody’s columns,” Kenseth said, smiling. “Those things actually add pressure because I don’t want to be the guy that goes in the record book that had that big of a lead and blew it.”

Bill Elliott won Sunday’s race, but it was Kenseth who got most of the attention after wrapping up the first Cup title for both himself and car owner Jack Roush.

Kenseth came into Sunday’s race knowing he needed only to finish seventh or better to end the suspense after leading the points and feeling the pressure of being out front since March 9 in Atlanta.

“There’s a feeling you get in your stomach when you’re leading the race and you see somebody coming up behind you,” Kenseth explained. “It’s an empty feeling in the pit of your stomach, and that’s what it feels like, like I’ve been leading a race for the last three months.

“I got all this stuff bottled up inside because I didn’t want to get too excited the last few months. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. It’s an awesome feeling.”

The champion took a slow victory lap in his No. 17 Ford, followed by a pair of open trucks carrying most of his Roush Racing team, several of them waving championship banners as the crowd stood and cheered.

Matt Kenseth, center, is surrounded by the media after he clinched the NASCAR Winston Cup series championship with a fourth-place finish in the Pop Secret 400. Bill Elliott won the race Sunday at North Carolina Speedway near Rockingham, N.C.

“This is beyond my wildest dreams,” Kenseth said. “I never thought I’d have the opportunity to sit in one of these cars, much less be the champion. I’m just thankful to be in good equipment with good people working on it.”

The championship was very emotional for Roush, who finished second in the points four times with Mark Martin in his first 15 years in the Winston Cup series and has acknowledged bitter feelings over some of rulings by NASCAR over the years.

“It’s kind of like going through a plate glass window,” Roush said. “There’s a lot of pain breaking through it. But I have probably fussed and complained about some things I probably shouldn’t have.

“Things certainly don’t look as dark to me today as they have the days and years preceding,” the owner added. “As I said, we’ve come close with Mark four times, and this would have been once for Matt if we weren’t able to close the deal.”

The 31-year-old driver from Cambridge, Wis., took the title in his fourth season in NASCAR’s top stock-car series with consistency, winning just once but coming up with 11 top fives and 26 top 10s in 35 races.

He is 226 points ahead of runner-up Jimmie Johnson with only next weekend’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway remaining. The most a driver can make up in one race is 151 points.

The 48-year-old Elliott, who has been the subject of retirement rumors, came up with his first win of the season, the 44th of his career and first since taking the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis last year.

Bill Elliott celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Pop Secret 400.

“It seems like everything has just come together for this team the last few months,” Elliott said. “We had a great car here today. That thing just came on when the race started and stayed good all day.”

Pressed on the possibility that he will retire after next Sunday’s season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Elliott said he has not made a decision on his future.

“Right now, I want to concentrate on the last race at Homestead and what we’re going to do there, and we’ll think about next year after that,” Elliott said.

Johnson still faces a battle for second in the standings with Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished 13th and fell from second to third in the standings.

Earnhardt trails Johnson by 38 points going to Homestead.