A three-member panel on Thursday upheld NASCAR’s penalties against driver Matt Kenseth, which will keep him out of the next two Sprint Cup Series races. The national motorsports appeals panel denied Kenseth’s appeal Thursday and a few hours later so did final appeals officer Bryan Moss, who did reduce Kenseth’s probation from six months until the end of this year.
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Kenseth’s team owner, Joe Gibbs, agrees that NASCAR’s ruling of a two-race suspension was a bit harsh. “But we’re going to go into the Truck Series race first and then see what happens and try to fire off and get to where we need to be in that series”.
Kenseth proved that there has to be consequences and, bottom line, this will be a self-policing sport if a driver takes that win-at-all-costs attitude. “Sure, when people crown the statement that a driver’s doing what he’s got to do and they became okay with that statement, you’re just opening up Pandora’s box – everyone is just doing what they have to do I guess”. You’re going to have to deal with it because this is how I’m going to handle it.’ And that probably frustrated Matt. I’m not going to change how I race. “I feel like I’m going to continue to have the respect on the race track that I feel like I deserve”. “I’m not going to change how I race”.
The other news has also enjoyed widespread circulation: former champion Matt Kenseth has been suspended for two races for intentionally crashing leader Joey Logano at the Martinsville, Va. race, thus enabling Gordon to win.
Kenseth was eliminated from championship eligibility during the three-race Contender Round in large part because of an on-track run-in with Logano at Kansas Speedway on October 18. That decision made sense given Bowyer’s extreme takeover attempt, maybe, but it was not much different than Logano effectively ending Kenseth’s title hopes at Kansas. The crash at Martinsville put Logano in a deep hole in the Eliminator Round, as he now sits 28 points from the cutoff to be one of the four drivers to compete for the championship November 22 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. “That’s why we can’t be consistent with every single penalty because sometimes we’ve got to up the ante with a penalty because we don’t believe the current remedy is a deterrent. That’s one of the reasons that we arrived at a two-race suspension in this particular case”. The two-step NASCAR appeal process was expedited to have a decision before the race this weekend. Moss also heard the final appeal for Behavioral Penalties against Kurt Busch of Stewart-Haas Racing in February and the last appeal for technical penalties against Ryan Newman’s team fielded by Richard Childress Racing in May.
NASCAR chairman Brian France told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that Kenseth was harshly punished because penalties needed to be increased to deter any driver from doing the same thing. Kenseth went spinning with five laps to go and he finished 14th.
Kenseth, the last series champion before the Chase was introduced in 2004, was uncharacteristically angry after he was wrecked at Kansas. He had one other minor infraction – he’s been great for NASCAR.
All of a sudden folks in the NASCAR garage were no longer talking about Harvick and how he, too, should have been hit with a penalty for his actions at Talladega, . “I think everyone uses common sense and that’s what the driver code is”.
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An ailing Hamlin stepped out of his ride following a lengthy rain delay at Bristol in April, and Jones took it to a 26th-place run in his unofficial Sprint Cup debut.
