“I’m not going to change”: When Matt Kenseth delivered his message to NASCAR after ‘extremely disappointing’ unprecedented ruling
Matt Kenseth was disappointed with NASCAR and their decision to ban him for two races after an incident he had with Joey Logano in Martinsville. Kenseth appealed against the suspension, but he lost it and the decision was sustained.
The former NASCAR driver had an intense moment with Joey Logano during the 2015 season. During an earlier race at Kansas, Logano had spun Kenseth around while battling for the lead. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver needed that win at the time so he could advance in the Eliminator Rounds. Logano had already made the cut by then, thanks to his previous win at Charlotte.
The two drivers shared a heated moment heading into Martinsville, and Kenseth turned into Logano, seemingly intentionally. This put Logano in a tough position to advance. Subsequently, Matt Kenseth was given a two-race ban by NASCAR. In a later statement, he expressed his disappointment, claiming that he was "not going to change" as a person.
"I appreciate them having the process and going here, didn’t turn out like we wanted. Obviously, I’m more than a little disappointed with the decision and the penalties to start with."
"Like I said, I’m extremely disappointed but we’ll get through this. Look forward to going to Homestead. I’m not going to change who I am. I’m not going to change what I stand for. I’m not going to change how I race. I’ve been in this business for a long time. I feel like I’ve had a pretty good career to this point, and I feel like I’m going to continue to have the respect on the race track that I feel like I deserve."
"We can't be consistent": What NASCAR said about Matt Kenseth's penalty
Matt Kenseth had claimed that he was the first driver in the sport's history to be suspended because of a penalty in a Sprint Series race and felt that the move was unfair against him.
However, the then NASCAR Chairman Brian France addressed the alleged inconsistency in the penalty system.
"We issue penalties for two reasons: We've got to punish you for what we think you've done wrong, and we have to make sure that we deter somebody else from doing exactly what you did or worse." France said.
"That's why we can't be consistent with every single penalty because sometimes we've got to up the ante with a penalty because we don't believe the current remedy is a deterrent. That's one of the reasons that we arrived at a two-race suspension in this particular case."
Matt Kenseth headed into the season's final race at Homestead Miami after missing two races. He finished in seventh place, as Kyle Busch won the Championship of the 2015 season.