|
 At the half-mile Martinsville Speedway last fall, Matt Kenseth
paid back Joey Logano for hitting him on the high-speed Kansas City
track two weeks earlier by putting the Penske Racing driver's Ford
into the wall in the closing stages.
It cost Logano, who was the race leader, a shot at four straight
victories. He appeared headed to the final round of the Chase in
Homestead, but instead wound up needing victories in one of the
following two races, which didn't materialize. A fourth straight
victory also would have enabled Logano to tie a longstanding modern
era record held by several drivers.
It was the context of the Chase that led NASCAR officials to heavily
penalize Kenseth with a two-race suspension, one of the stiffest
penalties in the sport's history. NASCAR took exception to one
driver affecting the outcome of the championship under the
two-year-old elimination format of the Chase - even if historically
paybacks have been tolerated, particularly under the "Boys have at
it" slogan of recent years.
The incident certainly riled up each driver's fan base and fans of
the sport in general. Martinsville officials have even been using it
to help promote this weekend's race, a throwback to the days when
feuds were one of stock car racing's biggest ticket sellers.
 At this stage, the feud between the two drivers appears to be over.
Interestingly, both are currently trying to get their 2016 seasons
back to the momentum each had in 2015 prior to their respective
Chase debacles. Thus far this season, each driver could be described
as an underachiever.
Logano, who had six wins and a Daytona 500 victory last year, was a
runner-up to teammate Keselowski in Las Vegas after leading 74 laps
there. Otherwise, he's led just three laps and has also gotten into
another dustup. Logano drew ire from another driver as well as a
crew chief in the Auto Club Speedway event after high-speed contact
put Martin Truex, Jr. into a glancing blow with the wall.
Truex's crew chief, Cole Pearn, tweeted: "I guess @joeylogano can's
see through squinty douchy eyes." (Pearn later deleted the tweet and
apologized.)
Kenseth enters Martsinville looking for just his second Top 10
finish of the season. He was leading the Daytona 500 on the last lap
before a decision to try to block eventual winner Denny Hamlin
didn't pan out, which dropped him to 14th. He had a steering problem
in Las Vegas that eventually dropped him to 37th and his only Top 10
finish has been a seventh in Phoenix.
During the off-season, Logano was almost cherubic about the Kenseth
incidents.
He continued to maintain he was wronged by Kenseth in Martinsville
and that it was not the other way around in Kansas.
"There's definitely a lot of positives," said Logano during this
year's Media Tour about how last season ended. "Maybe I'm a positive
thinker, but that's the way I get through life. I look at the silver
lining. Where do I grow from this whole thing, internally as a
person or externally as what we do as a race team, how we gained
fans throughout this whole thing. I couldn't be more proud of how we
handled everything and I greatly appreciate how my fans supported
me."
[to top of second column] |
For his part, Kenseth has been unrepentant and believes NASCAR's
two-race suspension was far too severe compared to Jeff Gordon not
getting any time off after the four-time champion retaliated against
Clint Bowyer in Phoenix during the Chase in 2012.
Headed into Sunday, each driver is looking for his first win at
Martinsville as well as his first of the season and both have
excellent recent records at the track. Former Wisconsin short track
driver Kenseth says his competitiveness has picked up on the paper
clip-shaped track in Virginia thanks to what he's learned from his
teammates since joining Joe Gibbs Racing in 2013. He led more laps
(96) in his first race on board a Toyota in Martinsville than in his
previous 13 seasons in Jack Roush-prepared Fords.
"There wasn't much I enjoyed about racing at Martinsville until I
came to Joe Gibbs Racing," he said. "They've really just helped me
to run better there and I've learned a lot from my teammates and
have gotten some pretty competitive runs in. So I'm looking forward
to this weekend. Martinsville is always one of my biggest challenges
of the year, but it can be a lot of fun when our cars are running
well."
The Penske team has four victories in Fords at Martinsville, but
hasn't won with one since Rusty Wallace was victorious in 1996.
Penske came close last year with Logano, who has led 414 laps in his
last four appearances at the track.
Part of Logano's problems this season may have to do with the Ford
Fusion, which features a nose with new aerodynamics to better align
the car with the company's 2017 street model. Beyond the 25 total
laps led by Keselowski and the 77 by Logano, Brian Scott has led one
lap under green in a Ford and Bobby Labonte has led one lap under
yellow. So it has yet to be a banner year for the Fords.
Since aerodynamics are secondary to mechanical grip at Martinsville,
it may be an opportunity for Penske to regain some momentum from the
2015 season. In light of the fact NASCAR has already punished
Kenseth and likely let Logano know that he should move on from the
incident in a post-race meeting, a victory on the Martinsville
bullring by the No. 22 Ford driver would be about the best payback
he can make.
-----------------------------------------------
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
