RELATED: Logano speaks about Kenseth penalty
FORT WORTH, Texas – NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers arrived at Texas Motor Speedway Friday still grappling with the fallout from last weekend's crash involving Matt Kenseth and Joey Logano, two of this season's most successful competitors.
Kenseth (Joe Gibbs Racing), was suspended for two races for crashing into Logano (Team Penske) with less than 50 laps remaining in Sunday's Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway. Logano was the race leader at the time of the crash; Kenseth was nine laps down.
Logano, who swept all three races in the Contender Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, was going for a fourth consecutive victory. Kenseth had been eliminated from Chase contention the previous weekend.
"I guess the implications aren't really clear on how things work and what kind of trouble you can get yourself into," fellow Chase competitor Martin Truex Jr. (Furniture Row Racing) said Friday at Texas. "Racing is racing. Guys have wrecked each other since racing started, OK? That's not going to change. Guys get mad all the time.
"I think people will go about it differently now because of what happened this week, for sure. How far that goes, I'm not real sure. We'll have to wait and see."
Logano leads the series in wins this season with six; Kenseth has five victories. The Martinsville incident dropped Logano to last among the eight drivers trying to qualify for the four who will compete for the championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway later this month. To earn a Championship Round spot for the second consecutive year, Logano will likely have to win either this weekend's AAA Texas 500 or next week's Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.
Logano said he didn't know if NASCAR's actions could change how some drivers react in certain situations, but added that it likely won't alter his own.
"Probably not," the 25-year-old said. "Does it change the way other people would handle a situation? I can't answer that. I don't know.
"I think we all did learn what NASCAR's stance is on this and that is something we will all put in our memory bank and know that going into the future."
MORE: Kenseth's two-race suspension upheld
Four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, winner of the Martinsville race and for now the only driver qualified to compete for the Championship 4, said he understood the reasoning behind the severity of the penalty.
"NASCAR wanted there to be a line and I like it when they draw a line," the Hendrick Motorsports driver said. "... We don't like judgment calls. We like things to be clear. And I think we're all pretty clear now.
"Yeah, it's gotten the people talking. It's gotten the media talking and the fans talking and it's created only more build-up to what's already a very exciting Chase format and close to the season. I don't want to say I look at it as a positive, I just think that it does bring more eyes to the sport and then they can choose and decide how they go from there."
Kenseth will return to the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing in the season-finale at Homestead. In his absence, Erik Jones will handle the driving duties for the team. Jones will start sixth in Sunday's race.
Carl Edwards, who joined JGR prior to the start of the 2015 season, said he'd spoken to Kenseth briefly. That his teammate was suspended, he said, "was a shock."
"I think everyone will be on pretty decent behavior because of that," Edwards said. "If that's how it's going to be, we definitely have to be careful."