Joey Logano moving forward after wreck with Matt Kenseth

There was good news this week in NASCAR and then there was the other news. Contact from Logano sent Kenseth – the race-leader – into a spin that ended the 2003 Cup Series champion’s bid to advance during the three-race Contender Round.

Jeff Gordon was fined $100,000 but avoided suspension for intentionally wrecking Clint Bowyer in a move that ended Bowyer’s 2012 title chances.

Kenseth was handed the penalty on Tuesday after an incident that took place late in Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway, which saw the Joe Gibbs Racing driver take out Penske’s Joey Logano apparently as retribution for a clash between the pair the previous month in Kansas that had contributed to Kenseth losing his place in this year’s Chase championship play-offs.

The southern Wisconsin native failed to have his suspension reduced or overturned yesterday (Thursday) in two appeals before a national motor-sports panel and final appeals’ officer Bryan Moss. Logano was out front and had led nearly half of the race to that point. One bad race will ruin any of the Chase qualifiers, now down to 8 from the original 16. He has no regrets with how he raced Kenseth at Kansas, when he tapped Kenseth’s bumper and spun him out of the lead and ultimately out of the Chase.

NASCAR officials decided it was hard racing. He could be forgiven for getting frustrated that Kenseth made it so hard to pass him. “But instead of listening to the critics and fans that don’t like men, I’m listening to the fans that I have”. You have to be a student of other drivers and how they do things. As it was, Logano never did prove he had the faster auto.

The National Motorsports Appeals Panel held firm on NASCAR’s two-race suspension of driver Matt Kenseth on Thursday.

Logano also stressed he’s made mistakes.

Right or not, Logano’s actions at Kansas were not without consequences.

On paper, the decision superseded numerous long-standing traditional policies of NASCAR, including “boys, have at it”, the self-policing garage and the driver’s code – unwritten rules that condoned participants taking matters into their own hands and justified retaliation for previous incidents.

That would be especially true of a driver in Logano’s position. Why should Kenseth sit two races and Patrick not?

The connection with Ganassi for DeFrancesco started eight years ago when he was first noticed racing at a karting track in Florida by Kanaan.

Nearly forgotten in the aftermath of Matt Kenseth’s revenge strike against Joey Logano last Sunday at Martinsville is that Kenseth himself was spun by Brad Keselowski 20 laps earlier. Logano received the same treatment last month, when he was declared the victor over popular Dale Earnhardt Jr. on a controversial restart.

Kenseth will miss the next two races, at Texas and Phoenix, and is eligible to return for the November 22 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Harvick, the defending champ, characterizes the current Chase format as a matter of survival.

“Just move on and be a damn adult”, said Keselowski, Sunday’s pole-sitter. It applies to fellow NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers, too. But the ultimate goal is to win the race.

“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.