RELATED: Watch the incident between Kenseth, Logano
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If the biggest lightning-rod moment of the 2015 season had somehow slipped through Matt Kenseth‘s memory banks, he wouldn’t have to search far for a reminder of what went down at Martinsville Speedway last fall with rival Joey Logano.
The historic race track has used the replays of Kenseth’s intentional crash of Logano last November in television commercials promoting Sunday’s STP 500 (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But even if Kenseth hasn’t been tuning in, he said the incident has also endured with fans, who continue to broach the topic in casual conversation.
“Every week. People bring it up pretty much every week,” Kenseth said. “All winter.”
Kenseth, speaking Wednesday after joining Jimmie Johnson on a 130-mile charity bicycle ride from Asheville, North Carolina, to Charlotte, drew a two-race suspension from NASCAR last season after bouncing Logano from victory contention in the most recent race at the historic .526-mile track. The two drivers said this offseason that they’d prefer to put their incident in the past, but returning to the site for the first time since last year’s confrontation has made it unavoidable.
Martinsville Speedway president Clay Campbell defended using the footage in the track’s promotional campaigns, telling reporters Tuesday: “Yeah, it stirred up controversy, but what do people want me to show, the pace lap?”
Kenseth said he could see merits to both points of view.
“I mean, yes and no. If it’s so bad you get suspended from it, it seems like if it’s maybe that bad of an act, then maybe it shouldn’t be used to profit from, because I certainly didn’t profit from it,” Kenseth said with a deadpan smirk. “On the other hand, the fans … a lot of people come to see controversy and action and wrecks. I mean, that’s what the fans love.
” … I don’t know. I understand. If I’m a promoter, I’d do the same thing obviously. They’re trying to put people in the stands, and the people loved it that were in the stands, the action and the controversy. So I can’t blame them there, but yeah, it does seem kind of — I don’t know what the right word is — not what I would expect, I guess, if it was really that bad of an act.”
Martinsville is one of five tracks where Kenseth has never won. One factor that may help him fill the void this weekend is the return of a familiar face to the spotters’ stand in Chris “Crazy” Osborne.
Osborne, sidelined with multiple injuries in an automobile crash Dec. 17, will be working the team radio for the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota for the first time this season. Lorin Ranier and Curtis Markham spotted for Kenseth in the interim.
RELATED: Osborne talks accident, return
“I’m glad that he’s feeling better and he’ll be back, so we definitely missed him for sure,” Kenseth said of Osborne, who also spots for Daniel Suarez in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. “Curtis did a good job filling in and so did Lorin, but it’s just not the same when you get a guy you’re used to giving you certain kind of information and communicating with the crew chief.
“All that working together and understanding each other, he’s the guy you talk to most of the time, so it’s hard to unplug him and just plug someone else in that late in the game for sure.”