NASCAR News 2015: Matt Kenseth Gets Two-Race Suspension for Crashing Joey Logano
Matt Kenseth won't be doing any racing at the Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, as well as the Phoenix International Raceway next week, due to a two-race suspension handed out by NASCAR after his intentional and flagrant wreck on the car of race leader Joey Logano at the Martinsville Speedway last Sunday.
The decision to suspend Kenseth is a testament of the stock car racing organization's commitment to prevent similar incidents in the future. Because of the penalty, the American driver becomes the first to be suspended because of an actual track incident; the last one being Kyle Busch four years ago.
It also is a huge blow for him because he was on track to breaking Jeff Gordon's record for the longest streak of consecutive starts for any active driver today. The punishment may appear to be harsh for many racing fans because in the previous suspensions, which were similar in nature, the usual band was usually one race and nothing more.
In justifying its decision, NASCAR said:
"The fact that the new Chase elimination format puts a premium on each and every race these actions have no place in NASCAR."
Furthermore, the racing organization said that the penalty was warranted because Kenseth did not have any more chance of winning the race and the attempt to alter the outcome of the game was simply wrong.
Kenseth's racing team, Joe Gibbs Racing, responded to the news by saying they will file an appeal, with teammates saying that Logano deserved to be hit because he broke the drivers' code.
The intentional crashing was with reason, though, as it looks like it was a payback move because Logana actually wrecked Kenseth in a previous race, which led to him getting eliminated from the playoff series. Because of what happened on Sunday, Logano was not able to secure a spot for the finale on Nov. 22
