NASCAR: Kenseth crashing Logano out of lead ‘disappointing’
NASCAR vice president Steve O’Donnell said the sanctioning body was disappointed in the way that Matt Kenseth took out Joey Logano in Sunday’s race at Martinsville.
Kenseth was driving a wounded car and crashed Logano, who was leading the race. Kenseth and Logano had previously had contact at Kansas two weeks ago when Kenseth went spinning as the two battled for the lead in the race’s final laps.
Kenseth’s car on Sunday was damaged from a previous incident involving Logano’s teammate Brad Keselowski on a restart. While he stopped short of directly admitting his intentions after the crash, the video of the incident made it clear that Kenseth had one thing on his mind as Logano lapped him on lap 454.
O’Donnell said that Kenseth being multiple laps down colored the sanctioning body’s view of the incident. Any penalties against Kenseth would be announced Tuesday.
“What we’ve said is the Chase promotes great racing and we saw that today on the race track,” O’Donnell said. “… I think what was disappointing today was the incident that we’re referring to is a driver that’s not competing for a win, was in fact many laps down when that happened. So in our minds that’s a little bit different than two drivers really going after it coming out of turn four for a win versus what happened tonight.”
We left the first sentence of O’Donnell’s comment in there for a reason. He referred to how the Chase promotes “great racing” multiple times throughout his press conference. It’s hard not to see how those comments aren’t at least a small admission that the racing itself in the Cup Series right now isn’t great. And that the sport needs an elimination-style playoff format to create drama and excitement.
There’s been plenty of chaos through the first 17 races of the current Chase format. Enough that it’s hard to remember them all. There was Kenseth tackling Keselowski at Charlotte in 2014. The kerfuffle between Keselowski’s team and Jeff Gordon’s after an on-track incident at Texas. Ryan Newman pushing Kyle Larson out of the way at Phoenix to get to the Chase. Kevin Harvick shoving Jimmie Johnson after the two had contact at Chicago this year. Logano and Kenseth at Kansas. And of course, the craziness at Talladega last week.
Did we forget anything?
Kenseth’s retribution towards Logano is simply a continuation of the circus theme peddled after last week’s finish. With the list above, it’s hard not to argue that NASCAR’s Chase has become a circus. Just when you think the absurdity is over, lighter fluid is poured over the faintest of sparks.
O’Donnell was adamant that the Chase format is not the lighter fluid.
“I think the Chase format creates great racing on the track and you saw the eight competitors who were going for a championship lead laps today,” O’Donnell said. “Drivers at their best. So you’re going to see drivers going door-to-door and in the history of NASCAR we’ve seen that. Again I’d go back to this incident as a one-off that we’ll look at and we continue to believe that the Chase promotes great racing on the track and I think the fans certainly saw that today.”
It’s hard to agree with him at this point.
But that could change with any punitive actions the sanctioning body takes on Tuesday. Kenseth’s “cowardly” (according to Logano) and punkish move could be the catalyst for the way NASCAR handles the Chase and controversy moving forward.
With his actions Sunday, Kenseth backed up his Talladega words that the racing is “just kind of out of control.” If NASCAR chooses to penalize Kenseth substantially (because he’s been eliminated from the Chase, a points penalty is severely diminished), it can show it has control of what’s happening on the track. And finally give a clear warning that not every incident needs to be settled with a bumper or a physical confrontation.
2015 hasn’t been a good year for the sport. The preseason rules changes flopped so badly that the sport made midseason tweaks. The sanctioning body suspended a driver days before the Daytona 500 and reinstated him three races later after no criminal charges were filed against him. And it issued a weak and ineffective declaration asking fans to refrain from bringing the Confederate flag to NASCAR events.
But there’s optimism moving forward and it’s mainly due to the anticipation of the quality of the racing in 2016. The low-downforce rules that were such a hit at Darlington and Kentucky will be in effect almost everywhere next year. Many believe there won’t be any promotion or fostering needed by the sport’s title format for great racing to happen.
Sunday is a grand opportunity for the sport to show that the constant-confrontation status quo isn’t sustainable, even if it’s entertaining. The cheers for Kenseth after he got out of his car were exceptionally loud.
So were the cheers for Jeff Gordon, the winner of Sunday’s race. Gordon’s win was an authentic moment. Kenseth’s was, well, borderlining on professional wrestling. And many people consider wrestling to be entertaining. But few, if any, consider it to be authentic.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
