Panel denies Matt Kenseth’s appeal of 2-race suspension

NASCAR suspended Kenseth on Tuesday from participating in the Chase for the Sprint Cup races at TMS and Phoenix worldwide Raceway after ruling he intentionally crashed into Joey Logano during the late stages of Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway.

Although he lost in the appeals process in relation to his two-race suspension, Matt Kenseth had his probation period dropped from six months to two months.

On Tuesday, NASCAR suspended Kenseth for the next two races in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs for his role in a crash with Joey Logano in Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway. And for that, while absorbing much of the blame, NASCAR was certainly justified in issuing a two-race suspension to the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. Check back here for updates on that appeal.

“We have a pretty effective ecosystem on the track of being able to take care of each other”.

“He unnecessarily, I thought, took me out at the beginning of the race”, Patrick told NASCAR Talk later in the week, “so I was just repaying the favor”. “I did what I felt like I had to do”.

The opinion here is that Logano might have avoided the fiasco had he acknowledged he hit Kenseth intentionally, instead of couching it under “hard racing”. Logano now sits in the last position on the eight-driver Chase Grid, 28 points outside of the fourth-place cutoff to make the “Final Four” field at the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway. I’m not going to change who I am. “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”.

But two days later when France attempted to establish a few standards of what’s permissible and what’s not by suspending Kenseth two races, drivers resisted the infringement on their self-policing methodology.

“Based upon our extensive review, we have concluded that the No. 20 auto driver [Matt Kenseth], who is no longer in the Chase, intentionally wrecked the No. 22 vehicle driver [Joey Logano], a Chase-eligible competitor who was leading the race at the time”. I love Brian France, but when he says that drivers are doing what they have to do, it seems like he’s promoting this type of racing, so that’s tough to crown a true champion when things go like this.

Unfortunately for Matt Kenseth and his fans, he won’t be taking part in the race, as his suspension begins this weekend. “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”.

As for Logano, his chances at bringing home a championship don’t look good unless he can win one of the next two races to advance to the final round of the chase.

Ken Clapp, a past NASCAR vice-president of marketing development, Bill Mullis, a former driver and owner of Langley Speedway in Virginia, and Dale Pinilis, operator of North Carolina’s historic Bowman Gray Stadium, comprised the rotating three-member panel. “All of us are just right now so disappointed”, team owner Joe Gibbs said. “That guy right there [Kenesth] has spent 20 years in this sport”.

This is NASCAR’s version of the “wild West”, as one driver put it, and it is riddled with inconsistencies. “One of those is exactly like this one, and yet this penalty against Matt is an unprecedented one”.

“I think it all depends on whose name is above the door on whether or not you’re allowed to do it”, Busch said.