Pushed to his limit after three races worth of slights, #20-Matt Kenseth firmly believed he had no choice but to retaliate against #22-Joey Logano. His deliberate wrecking of Logano drew a two-race suspension from NASCAR, and Kenseth said Friday he would have handled the payback differently had he known he’d draw such an unprecedented penalty. But in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Kenseth said he would do it again. “I really stand by my actions,” he said. “I feel like there’s a breaking point. It wasn’t just about being mad, it was about getting this fixed. It was time to make it stop.” Logano spun Kenseth while racing for a win at Kansas that Kenseth needed to continue his championship chances. Kenseth retaliated two races later by wrecking Logano as Logano raced for a win at Martinsville Speedway that would have landed him a berth in the championship field. Kenseth had returned to the track down nine laps after a wreck with Logano teammate #2-Brad Keselowski. “You have to have respect in the garage area. If you are going to go out and try to race for wins and race for championships, you can’t be a doormat or next year you are going to get knocked out again,” Kenseth said. “Drivers are going to be like, “Well, he ain’t going to do nothing. We’ll just knock him out of the race and then jack with him as much as possible and make sure he’s not going to make it through because he’s not going to retaliate.’ “At some point, in my opinion, you have to retaliate.” His mood upbeat and his deadpan humor intact in a 30-minute interview from North Carolina, Kenseth accepted responsibility for wrecking Logano but insisted he feels no remorse that it potentially ruined Logano’s title chances. Kenseth will return for next weekend’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and admitted the first four days after the suspension were “were really hard on me” and he struggled to watch Erik Jones drive his race car. He watched Sunday’s race at Texas on television, and is eager to get back to his Joe Gibbs Racing team for the finale. When he makes his return, he vowed to be more aggressive on the track than he’s ever been.(see full article at the Associated Press)(11-14-2015)
