Controversy sells and nobody knows that better than NASCAR.
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Matt Kenseth is appealing his two-race suspension Thursday, but NASCAR apparently will contend he altered the outcome of a race by intentionally wrecking Joey Logano.
It is the final chapter in the Kenseth saga, as the decision was determined during Joe Gibbs Racing’s final appeal to NASCAR.
“I’m not convinced it was a bad thing”, Logano said Friday of being wrecked by Matt Kenseth in the late stages of the Goody’s 500.
“It’s just unfortunate that our race had to end that way”, said an agitated Logano. When the dust settled, Jeff Gordon had won the race to advance to the Championship race at Homestead-Miami.
“That was a racing thing, what happened in Kansas”, Logano said. He could be forgiven for getting frustrated that Kenseth made it so hard to pass him.
The Penske drivers’ arrangement on restarts was partially to blame for a crash with 65 laps remaining, bottling up the front-runners and snaring Kenseth, Keselowski and Kurt Busch with the most damage. “But instead of listening to the critics and fans that don’t like men, I’m listening to the fans that I have”.
Logano had an opportunity to have it both ways – to behave like a champion while serving notice that drivers risked consequences if they incessantly blocked him.
“The National Motorsports Appeals Panel today heard and considered the appeal of a Behavioral Penalty issued on November 3 to Matt Kenseth (driver) relative to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series vehicle #20 at Martinsville Speedway”.
Kenseth will now not be racing the next two races at Texas and Phoenix, which will be big toward sponsorship and making money for the team. Kenseth was nine laps down when he crashed Logano, who was the race leader. That certainly happened to Kenseth in Kansas.
“That is NASCAR who looked at that in the way they needed to and made the decision they felt was right”, Logano said. You have to be a student of other drivers and how they do things.
That would be especially true of a driver in Logano’s position.
In his mind, his season was already over, and short of punishing him deep into 2016, Kenseth had nothing to lose by taking Logano out.
The connection with Ganassi for DeFrancesco started eight years ago when he was first noticed racing at a karting track in Florida by Kanaan. NASCAR shrugged it off, saying it couldn’t find any evidence Harvick meant to do it. The race is the second-of-three in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Eliminator Round.
Another conclusion is obvious: the pressure on drivers is enormous under the new Chase format, young and old alike. Again, the crowd cheered.
Defending race champion Jimmie Johnson will start eighth. It was Gordon’s 93rd career victory.
But that simply didn’t happen, as the track wasn’t ready to go until about 3 p.m. with the green flag dropping for the Xfinity Series race at 3:15 p.m.
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“I know there’s a lot of discussion about consistency in our penalties and there should be and that’s part of the equation”, France said earlier in the week.
