NSCS: Kenseth Takes Out Logano Following Incident with Keselowski

Matt Kenseth had put himself in a position to battle for the race lead on Sunday at Martinsville, restarting behind Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski on a restart.

The pair of teammates tried to orchestrate the perfect restart with 65 laps to go to them both on the bottom, which bottled up the whole field. Kenseth would get to the outside of Keselowski, set to pull up to the outside of Logano, and battle for the win. However, contact would happen between Keselowski and Kenseth, sending Kenseth spinning and causing heavy damage to his car.

“It’s a really disappointing day,” Kenseth said of the incident. “I thought we were going to have a shot at the win there and they were jacking up the restart real bad to let each other in as teammates which is fine and I probably went in there and I got on the other side of Joey (Logano) and I was going to try to race him for the win and Brad (Keselowski) wiped me out for some reason. I’m not really sure why.”

Keselowski said that the contact happened as a result of someone running into the back of him.

“I got hit from behind and pushed me into the 20 and my right-front wheel hit Kenseth’s left-rear and it just broke the right-front suspension off the car,” Keselowski explained. “The car wouldn’t turn and just kept going straight until I couldn’t do anything and I started wrecking everybody.  I just didn’t have any steering wheel left.”

Regardless, from that point on, Kenseth’s chances at victory were shot with having to go behind the wall for repairs.

Returning to the track, Kenseth would find himself Logano – the very person who spun him with five laps to go at Kansas Speedway while battling for the lead. Going into turn one with 46 laps to go, Kenseth would get into Logano, driving him right up the track and destroying Logano’s car. Logano, who was leading at the time, saw his chance at victory after leading 207 laps disappear in those seconds.

Kenseth said that he slid up into Logano as a result of the right front tire being flat and not being able to turn the car due to the damage caused from the previous incident. Logano, meanwhile, wasn’t buying the explanation in saying that the contact was payback for Kansas, which wasn’t rightfully deserved.

“We were racing for the win and he blocks you a few times and then we raced hard and he blocked me the last time and he spun out.  That’s what happened there,” Logano said. “Here it was just a complete coward move, especially for a championship race car driver and race team.  Just a complete coward.  I don’t have anything else to say. It’s a chicken-you-know-what move to completely take out the leader when your race is over.”

In response, Kenseth said that he didn’t “have any comments for that”.

“There’s people that say a lot of things,” Kenseth added. “The splitter was dragging the ground and got into the corner and certainly ruined his day. I know what it’s like to be that too. Some days you’re the bat some days you’re the ball. It’s never fun when you’re the ball so like I said disappointing end, a disappointing end to our Chase and he’s (Joey Logano) got a couple races left, he’s got the best car, he might get a couple of wins here and still have a shot at it. Certainly disappointed it came down to that.”

Kenseth added that it stinks to be in these situations and he tries to treat “every week as a new week”, but you also can’t let history keep repeating itself.

“Sometimes you get put in these spots and you’ve got to try to keep respect in the garage area,” he continued. “You can’t get yourself ran over. You can’t get in the Chase next year and get ran over for the same reason.

While not admitting that the contact was a form of payback, he did say that he’d rather be racing for the win rather than wrecked in the garage.

“I had two chances to win I think in the last three weeks and I got wrecked out of both of them going for the lead. One from him (Joey Logano) and one from Brad (Keselowski) so that’s disappointing,” he said. “We should have never been in that spot trying to limp that car around and get the finish.”

Keselowski was asked on his thoughts of the incident between Logano and Kenseth, in which he says his thoughts don’t matter.

“It matters what Brian France’s thoughts are,” Keselowski said. “He’s the one that runs the sport.  I think that’s a good question for him.”

NASCAR called Kenseth to the hauler post-race, along with crew chief Jason Ratcliff and car owner Joe Gibbs to discuss the incident.

“I think in the case with Matt, we were certainly disappointed with what took place tonight on the racetrack,” NASCAR Executive Vice President Steve O’Donnell said post-race. “We had a conversation with both Matt, crew chief, Joe Gibbs.  Like we always do, there’s still a lot to digest from what happened tonight.  We’ll do that.  We’ll have some additional conversations and probably come out with something, if there is anything to discuss, on Tuesday.”

O’Donnell added that while the Chase has promoted great racing, including thrilling battles for the win, this is disappointing as a result of a driver many laps down making contact with a driver on the lead lap. Whether there will be additional punishment for Kenseth, O’Donnell says that NASCAR is looking at it.

“By stating we’re going to discuss it, there’s certainly things we want to look at, compare it.  Look at videotape, have conversations like we do with any of these incidents,” he added. “We never make an announcement on a Sunday night.  It’s something we still want to review.  And, yeah, there are options on the table for us.”

Kenseth’s teammate Kyle Busch was asked for his thoughts and whether NASCAR will do something, saying that “it all depends on whose name’s above the door on whether or not you’re allowed to do it”.

“It’s boys being boys right now,” he added. “You got to be consistent.  I definitely feel NASCAR is very consistent in being inconsistent on calls.  I think it’s BS.  I say ‘they better’, but they don’t have to listen to me for squat.  Really doesn’t matter what I say.”

For Logano, it just means that he now sits 28 points below the cut line to make it to the final round of the championship and will more than likely have to win at Texas Motor Speedway or Phoenix International Raceway.

“We’ll go to Texas and try to win,” Logano said. “We’re on a heckuva run.  We were still leading the race.  We’re not gonna let this take us down.  This is a strong team and he’ll have his.”

When asked whether his deal with Kenseth was over, Logano said, “There’s a championship to win.  We’re gonna win that.”