Matt Kenseth: Suspension upheld

Fox Sports noted that Kenseth will not be able to participate on the race at the Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday and the next week at the Phoenix worldwide Raceway.

Matt Kenseth says NASCAR is “unfairly” making him out to be an example with his two-race suspension for retaliating against Joey Logano. “And if somebody has to tell you, then you should have never made it this far in the sport”.

Logano rebuffed the notion that his perceived arrogance had stoked a feud with Kenseth and tainted the view of fans.

NASCAR suspended Kenseth, so Erik Jones will be in the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing for Sunday’s race.

The sport has gone all-in on the “Boys Have At It” brand of racing, which means that hidden foreign objects, the occasional pull of the firesuit and smashing into other cars are perfectly legal as long as the ref doesn’t see it.

Logano got knocked from first to last among the eight championship contenders after being intentionally wrecked by Kenseth at Martinsville a week ago as payback. We’ve got plenty of time to get ourselves back in. I think they are stand up people and I appreciate having them wearing my t-shirt. “I wondered what happened and didn’t know what was going on”. The pressure is ratcheted up high this weekend and we will see how Busch deals with it.

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.

Joey Logano, center, heads to the garage before the start of NSACAR Sprint Cup auto race practice at Texas Motor Speedway Friday, November 6, 2015, in Fort Worth, Texas.

Also gone was Keselowski’s place as one of four drivers eligible for the championship in two weeks at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He already owns a Texas victory to go along with five top five finishes and sits at 5-1 odds to win heading into the AAA Texas 500. Sunday, Johnson kept prodding Keselowski, forcing him to react defensively before finding the opportune moment to power around the No. 2 vehicle.

Gordon went nuts. “He’s a dip-[bleep]”, Gordon said. “Because, in my opinion, that is going to come back to you in the next couple of weeks, possibly at Homestead. Thank you, buddy. I don’t know how to even answer that”.

Kenseth, the 2003 NASCAR champion and a two-time Daytona 500 victor, was racing for a victory he needed to advance in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

There was no practice Saturday when efforts to dry the track after overnight rains were unsuccessful.

The Logano-Kenseth spat stemmed from the October 18 race at Kansas, where Kenseth was leading and trying to hold off a fast-closing Logano.

“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. I’m pretty pumped up about being here at the racetrack today….

“We are going to move forward”.

Edwards is a spot ahead of Keselowski, who has described himself as being in a “must-win situation”.

Logano had no real take on the suspension, nor his hater fans. That way I could understand the decision making process when handing down penalty like it did Tuesday when it suspended Matt Kenseth. But he could get one from his other JGR teammate, who is selling T-shirts with the same message for charity to benefit the Denny Hamlin Foundation.