Next stop Martinsville Speedway for Sunday’s S-T-P 500, sixth race of the 2016 Sprint Cup Series and the first of the season on a short track. Martinsville was the venue for one of the most dramatic moments of 2015 as Matt Kenseth put the brakes on Joey Logano’s three-race post-season winning streak.
Kenseth drove into the back of race leader Logano less than fifty laps from the finish of the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 on November 1st – sending Logano into the wall and to the garage for repairs as the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup began. Kenseth’s car was crippled from earlier contact with Brad Keselowski and he was running many laps down to Logano when they made contact, a retaliatory move on Kenseth’s part after the two had also gotten together two weeks earlier at Kansas Speedway.
Logano started from the pole and led 207 of the 454 laps that were run before Kenseth sent him into the wall and to the bottom of the Chase standings. Kenseth drew a two-race suspension for his actions. Logano had been one of the hottest drivers in the post-season but never recovered, failing to qualify for The Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and finishing sixth in the final standings.