Matt Kenseth loses final appeal, 2-race suspension upheld for crashing Joey Logano at Martinsville

Having lost both of his appeals Thursday, Matt Kenseth must immediately begin serving a two-race suspension for intentionally wrecking Joey Logano during Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway.

Kenseth will miss this weekend’s event at Texas Motor Speedway and Nov. 15 at Phoenix International Raceway before regaining edibility for the Nov. 22 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

After having his initial appeal denied earlier Thursday, Kenseth had his case heard by National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer Bryan Moss, who upheld Kenseth’s two-race suspension Thursday night, though reduced his probation from six months to the end of the calendar year. Moss’ decision is binding.

“It didn’t turn out like we wanted,” Kenseth told reporters after the final decision was announced. “I’m obviously more than a little disappointed on the decision and the penalties to start with. I’m the first driver in the 65-year history of NASCAR to get suspended for an incident that happened in a (premier division) race. I feel like I was unfairly made the example instead of knowing where the line is and what the penalties are. I’m extremely disappointed, but we’ll get through this and go to Homestead.

“I’m not going to change who I am, 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 racetrack I feel like I deserve. I’m looking forward to going to Homestead, hopefully going there and getting a win before the year is out.”

NASCAR penalized Kenseth after he deliberately crashed Logano, who was leading, despite being several laps down Sunday. Had Logano won the race he would have automatically earned a spot in the championship round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff. Kenseth had been eliminated the previous round and was angered that Logano spun him out of the lead with five laps remaining two weeks before at Kansas Speedway, a victory Kenseth needed to remain in title contention.

The penalty is rather unprecedented with NASCAR rarely suspending drivers for retaliatory behavior.

Jeff Gordon avoided suspension when he intentionally wrecked championship contender Clint Bowyer in the penultimate race of the 2012 season. The four-time Cup Series champion was fined $100,000 and docked 25 points, but allowed to compete the following week at Homestead. And most recently, Danica Patrick was fined and deduced points Tuesday but not suspended despite purposefully slamming into David Gilliland at Martinsville.

NASCAR CEO and chairman Brian France said the considerable difference in penalties for Kenseth and Patrick was due to the stakes involved. Kenseth impacted the integrity of the championship when he pile-drove Logano into the Turn 1 wall, while the incident between Patrick and Gilliland had no bearing on the outcome.

Kenseth’s team owner, Joe Gibbs, defended his driver and the severity of NASCAR sitting someone possessing a record of largely virtuous behavior.

“I think all of us are just right now so disappointed,” Gibbs said. “I just want to say (Kenseth) has spent 20 years in this sport and had one other minor infraction -- I think it was a $5,000 fine. He’s spent 20 years of his life racing in this sport and he’s been great for NASCAR.”

Several drivers including Denny Hamlin, a teammate of Kenseth’s at Joe Gibbs Racing, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Michael Waltrip took to social media to express their disappointment in Thursday’s ruling by using the “FreeMatt” hashtag.

JGR named Erik Jones to drive Kenseth’s No. 20 car at Texas and Phoenix.