Logano’s choice: Feud or move on
Will there be a little Martinsville Mayhem this weekend?
Stay tuned as Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth return to the scene of the crime. Logano still has skid marks on his back from November, when Kenseth, nine laps down, drove Logano’s car into the wall in retaliation for Logano knocking out Kenseth at Kansas earlier in the postseason.
Logano was leading the race and on course to make the Final Four at Homestead. After the dust-up, things didn’t work out so well for either driver. Kenseth was parked for the rest of the race and suspended for two races, and Logano got bumped out of championship contention.
Although all of the main characters in this melodrama have said they have moved past it, you never really do.
“I feel we’ve had two championship seasons without a trophy,” Logano said at the start of this season. “You can define me however you want. I’m going to define myself the way Iwant to.”
Is Logano primed for a third try at a championship — this one ending with a trophy presentation — or is he obsessed with payback?
“You have to make a decision,” said Jeff Gordon, who had a series of issues at Martinsville with Clint Bowyer a few years back. “How do I want to race this individual? Do I want to race this individual and keep this rivalry going, or do I want to move on from this and earn their respect as a competitor? And that just happens on how you treat one another on the racetrack.”
Respect? Or revenge?
Wood Brothers back: One of NASCAR’s iconic teams, the Wood Brothers, will return to Martinsville for the first time since 2011.
“It’s a huge thing,” Hall of Famer Leonard Wood told sportingnews.com. “We look forward to going to Martinsville. We used to run over there and have a lot of fun.”
Wood co-founded the team in 1950 with his brother, driver and fellow Hall of Famer Glen Wood. Martinsville is a natural fit for the Wood Brothers, whose family home is in nearby Stuart, Va.
Ryan Blaney, 22, will be behind the wheel. One of many teams facing a financial pinch, the Wood Brothers have struggled to remain competitive.
There was understandable friction at the beginning of the season when the Wood Brothers did not receive a charter under the new NASCAR business format because the team had not attempted to qualify for all points races since the start of 2013.