NASCAR has announced that Matt Kenseth has been suspended for the next two races in reaction to his actions at Martinsville Speedway. Photo by Sean Gardner/NASCAR via Getty Images
NASCAR took an unprecedented step on Tuesday with the announcement of a two-race suspension for Sprint Cup driver Matt Kenseth for deliberately crashing into fellow driver Joey Logano during Sunday’s Goody’s 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
NASCAR executive vice president Steve O’Donnell said the decision was made after an “extensive review” of Sunday’s incident. Kenseth was also placed on probation for six months.
NASCAR’s decision will mean Kenseth will sit out this weekend’s race at Texas Motor Speedway and next weekend’s race at Phoenix International Raceway, bringing his streak of 571 consecutive starts to an end. Kenseth will be eligible to return for the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 22.
Joe Gibbs Racing, who own Kenseth’s No. 20 Toyota Camry, announced they plan to appeal NASCAR’s decision.
Kenseth’s penalty stems from an incident involving Logano that happened with 55 laps to go in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race – the opening race in the three-race “Eliminator Round” in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Kenseth, who was running nine laps down following an earlier incident with Logano’s teammate, Brad Keselowski, was in the processed of being passed by Logano on the front stretch when Kenseth turned to the outside and pushed Logano’s No. 22 Ford right into the turn one wall, destroying both cars and ending the day for both drivers.
Logano was leading the race at the time and seemed to have a decent chance of winning the event and earning an automatic berth on the final championship round at Homestead.
Instead, Logano is now dead last among the eight drivers vying for the final two spots. Kenseth – who had already been eliminated from the Chase a week earlier – was parked by NASCAR, although his car was too damaged to continue anyway.
After the incident, Kenseth shrugged off any notion the contact was deliberate, but in Logano’s mind there was no doubt.
“It’s a chicken-you-know-what move to completely take out the leader when your race is over. It’s kind of a coward move,” said Logano. “Actually, a really coward move for a race car driver to do that, essentially someone as mature and an experienced race car driver that knows what this is all about.“
NASCAR seemed to agree.
In a statement released late Tuesday, O’Donnell said “Based upon our extensive review, we have concluded that the No. 20 car driver, who is no longer in the Chase, intentionally wrecked the No. 22 car driver, a Chase-eligible competitor who was leading the race at the time.
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The bad blood between Kenseth and Logano had been simmering for the last three weeks after Logano spun out Kenseth while he was leading at Kansas Speedway, denying Kenseth a chance to win and advance to the next round of the Chase.
The following weekend, Kenseth was caught up in a late race crash and was eliminated from the championship battle, leading many to speculate that some kind of retaliation was in the offing coming into Martinsville.
Although NASCAR has suspended drivers before, they have rarely done so for infractions committed on the track during the course of the race. The last driver to be suspended was Kyle Busch in 2011, for deliberately taking out a driver during a Camping World Truck Series race. Driver Jeff Gordon was fined – but not suspended – for crashing into driver Clint Bowyer in the second-to-last race in 2012.
Over the last five years, NASCAR has been content to let drivers settle their differences on the track, announcing during the 2010 pre-season media tour their philosophy of “Boys, have at it” and essentially allowing the drivers to drivers police themselves.
With that policy in place, NASCAR had been inconsistent with handing out penalties for rough driving on the track or lay out any kind of ruling on what is considered “over the line”
With the penalties issued on Tuesday, NASCAR made it clear that what Kenseth did was more than over the line.
Appearing on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday morning, NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France said NASCAR will take steps to make sure the rules regarding retaliation are clear.
“We will have rules of the road that are clear to understand,” France said. “We’ll get it right.”
“We don’t want (a retaliation) to happen again. We don’t want any of our events to be altered in a way where they shouldn’t be. That doesn’t mean that they don’t get altered because of hard racing. That’s going to happen depending on what end you’re on. That’s always going to be part of the game of NASCAR.
“Historically, when someone races you hard, you race them hard. If they’re going to give you no inches late in the race, that’s how you’re going to race them. Late in a race, we expect drivers to take chances to win races. That’s NASCAR. But what happened on Sunday, that’s not quite the way that we would have liked to have seen that turn out.”
NASCAR also handed out penalties to driver Danica Patrick for ramming her car into the back of the car of driver David Gilliland following a crash between the two drivers. Patrick was fined $50,000 and docked 25 points. She was also place on probation until Dec. 31.
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