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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Matt Kenseth said the race leader should not be at a disadvantage on restarts, and all the fuss about Saturday night’s final restart at Richmond International Raceway was news to him.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver dominated the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond, leading 352 laps, including the final 103, en route to his fourth victory of the season and third in the past six races.
Following the night’s final caution period, Kenseth quickly pulled away from then second-place driver Joey Logano following the Lap 383 restart.
Some, including Logano, felt Kenseth accelerated early, before reaching the restart zone, giving him an advantage as the field rolled back up to speed.
“I really didn’t know there was so much talk about it, to be honest with you,” Kenseth, the 2003 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, said Tuesday during a Chase Across North America appearance at Charlotte Douglas International Airport for Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The restart rule is clear, Kenseth said, noting that the race leader is expected to “start” the race at some point between the first and second lines (marked on the inside and outside walls).
But when the second-or third-place drivers lay back in order to be moving faster than the leader when the race resumes, it puts the leader at a disadvantage, he said.
“They want you to keep an even pace and take off somewhere in the zone and we all understand that,” said Kenseth. “If you are the leader and the second place guy is two car lengths behind you because he knows when you’re going to go, and this guy’s on the outside of you and they get rolling toward you before you get going, I mean I’m not going to be third before I get to Turn 1.
“The leader has to take some liberties to look around him and see what his competitors are doing because he is the leader, and he should not be at a disadvantage.
“If the third place car is two car-lengths behind you, rolling toward that line because they know when you are going to go, that’s a huge disadvantage for the leader.
“As a driver, you have to do what you think you need to do within the rules to make sure you’ve got your car out front to try to get that win at the end.”
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If that means some believe he got a free pass for appearing to jump the restart, Kenseth is making no apologies. “It’s not like I jammed the gas and left them 20 car-lengths,” he said.
“I think that you would be hard-pressed to find anybody, including the people that are complaining about it, to say that the fastest car didn’t win the race Saturday night. I think that we proved that. When we had that late of a caution, I was going to make sure that I did everything I could to get to Turn 1 first.”
Logano, who wound up finishing third, said he believes many drivers would like a better understanding of how NASCAR will police restarts going forward, especially with the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup beginning this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway. The 1.5-mile venue hosts the myAFibRisk.com 400 Sunday (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“Last weekend could make us look at it differently once again,” Logano told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday. “What’s OK and what’s not OK? Chances are this championship will come down to a late-race restart at Homestead; or getting into the next round could come down to a late-race restart. …
“There is always going to be gamesmanship but I think as a driver you want to know what you can and can’t do when you’re making those decisions for a restart.”
While NASCAR has put the onus on drivers to police themselves, the Team Penske driver said that’s difficult to do, explaining, “We’re race car drivers. We’re not thinking about it; our job is to go out there and win the race. So we will take advantage of every opportunity there is.”
Seeing how far one can go before NASCAR steps in is only natural. It’s not until NASCAR reacts that teams adjust and the process begins all over.
“I feel like the other night the line got pushed a little bit, and it was OK,” Logano said. “I think that will kind of show in the future where guys are going to go with these restarts. … Until we get clarity, we’ll keep pushing it more and more; you almost have to protect us from ourselves because we’ll take it to the extreme.”