There are obviously several different ways for the Joey Logano – Matt Kenseth debacle to play out, but I can’t blame Kenseth for doing what he did, even if it was wrong – perhaps justifiable but wrong… unless the splitter really was dragging and he couldn’t steer going into turn 1.
If that is the case, then darn the bad luck.
Obviously, after last’s week race at Talladega Superspeedway anything is believable. I predicted this type of thing was going to happen at the end of my previous column. Logano had one coming but I never expected to see it go down the way it did.
And then, of course, we have to go back to the possibility that Kenseth wrecking Logano was all a coincidence. Besides, isn’t this what NASCAR wanted? If I recall correctly, Brian France defended Logano dumping Kenseth when this whole fiasco started back in Kansas.
Well, it didn’t end there, because last week, Logano brake-checked Kenseth heading to pit road to exacerbate the issue. This week, Logano and Brad Keselowski were running a game on the field – and in my opinion manipulating the outcome of the race – by making a deal over the radio for Keselowski to back off and let Logano get in front of him on the restarts.
Is that cheating?
In retrospect, this is what caused Keselowski to wipe out Kurt Busch and Kenseth in the first place. Had the Nos. 2 and 22 not been scamming the system, Kenseth wouldn’t have been wrecked. If Kenseth wouldn’t have been wrecked, he would have gone for the win and there wouldn’t have pile-driven Logano’s car into the safer barrier. Instead, for the second time in four weeks a Penske Racing driver destroyed Kenseth’s chances at a win and he was probably angry about it.
So, the blame falls on Keselowski and Logano for creating this monster. And rather than chop off the infected appendage, NASCAR celebrated it. The first bite occurred at Kansas and over the next week, at Talladega, the infection set-in. After Keselowski ruined Kenseth’s shot at the win by manipulating the restarts a full-blown zombie apocalypse had set in.
To say this incident was anything different than what happened previously is hypocritical. However, this needs to be the end of it. This sport doesn’t need to make national headlines because its drivers are taking each other out and manipulating the outcome of the championship. Instead, it needs to make headlines for the storybook ending that resulted in Jeff Gordon punching his ticket to the final round of #TheChase at Homestead-Miami Speedway.