Matt Kenseth’s appeal of his two-race suspension will be heard Thursday.
The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota will go before the National Motorsports Appeal Panel in an attempt to have his suspension overturned Thursday at 9:00 a.m. in Concord, North Carolina. In the event that they lose the initial appeal and choose to appeal further, Brian Moss, the final appeal officer, will hear the final appeal, also on Thursday. The appeal process was expedited so that a determination could be made before the race this weekend.
Shortly after the suspension was announced Tuesday, JGR released a statement saying they would appeal the sanctions handed to their driver. They said they “will challenge the severity of the penalty which is believed to be inconsistent with previous penalties for similar on-track incidents” and that they would make no further comment during the appeal process.
Kenseth was suspended for two races after his role in an incident that took out race leader Joey Logano with 47 laps remaining in Sunday’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice-president and chief racing development officer, said that the sanctioning body “concluded that the No. 20 car driver, who is no longer in the Chase, intentionally wrecked the No. 22 car driver, a Chase-eligible competitor who was leading the race at the time. The No. 20 car was nine laps down and eliminated the No. 22 car’s opportunity to continue to compete in the race.”
O’Donnell also said that NASCAR “factored aspects of safety into our decision, and also the fact that the new Chase elimination format puts a premium on each and every race. These actions have no place in NASCAR.”
JGR has made no announcement in regards to whom would fill-in for Kenseth in the next two races.
