Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Through the early stages of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, Matt Kenseth ran at the front of the field, poised for a strong run. However, following an issue on pit road, Kenseth would cross the finish line in the 28th spot.
“I got black flagged for some type of pit road penalty and I didn’t know it and pitted the lap they told me to do a pass through, but I guess they must have been,” Kenseth said post-race. “I’m assuming they were black flagging us before that and they pulled our card, so I never heard anything about it or at least saw the flag or anything, so I came when they told me to come and I guess they must have penalized us a couple laps or something. I don’t really know. I haven’t really seen it.”
Running inside of the top-five at the time, Kenseth headed down pit road at lap 118 for a scheduled pit stop under the green flag, where his team received a penalty for “improper fueling”.
As a safety measure, NASCAR added an additional rule to the rule book, regarding the fuel man. Rule 10.11.1.1 of the rulebook states that “fueler will not be permitted to perform any adjustments or other pit stop procedures while the fuel can coupler is engaged”. Kenseth’s fueler laid a wedge wrench on the back decklid so that way the tire carrier could make an adjustment. According to the rule, though, that is not allowed.
With the rule being unclear to the Joe Gibbs Racing team, Kenseth’s crew chief Jason Ratcliff argued the infraction with the officials. During that time, Kenseth was shown the black flag with the with the white cross, meaning that he would be not scored if he didn’t hit pit road, as per rule 10.12.1.9 of the rulebook. Kenseth hit pit road at lap 126, losing a lap for ignoring the black flag with a white cross and another one on pit road.
The situation resulted in frustration for Kenseth on track, afterwards, as he was unaware of the flag being displayed, or know about the penalty till Ratcliff told him to pit at lap 126. After returning to the track, he was told that he was two laps down by the team, in which he responded, “How can we be two down? That doesn’t make any sense.” Kenseth continued to express his frustration on the radio, stating that somebody should’ve told him, and next time someone should tell him as “we just threw our race away here.”
It marks the second straight weekend that Kenseth hasn’t finished as well as he would’ve hoped, as he finished 14th in the Daytona 500 after leading a number of laps, including the white flag lap.
