Matt Kenseth, Joey Logano Meet Again at Martinsville: Will There Be More Drama?

As hard as this may be to imagine regarding a NASCAR track, the setting of Martinsville Speedway is pastoral. It is surrounded by meadows where, unfortunately, vehicles are parked on race days. Freight trains occasionally rumble past, parallel to the back straight.

The culinary delicacy is the sloppy, mass-produced, innards-bombing hot dog.

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Last fall, the race was a bomb, too. Joey Logano got "the big payback" from Matt Kenseth, who blamed Logano for eliminating him from the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Kenseth's version of frontier justice was ramming Logano's Ford with his Toyota. Jeff Gordon, largely as a result, claimed the 93rd and final victory of his NASCAR career.

At the conclusion of this spectacle, on November 1, 2015, NASCAR Executive Vice President Steve O'Donnell said: "I think what was disappointing...was the incident that I think we're referring to would be a driver that's not competing for a win; in fact, was many laps down when that happened.

"In our minds, that's a little bit different than two drivers really going after it coming out of Turn 4 for a win versus what happened [here]."

Kenseth took Logano out of both the aptly named Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 and the Chase, in which, at the time, he may have been considered the favorite. Logano led 207 laps that day.

Obviously, the two had clashed before. While battling for the lead with five laps to go at Kansas Speedway, Logano and Kenseth had clashed. Logano went on to win. Kenseth went on to seethe. He got his relief in Martinsville, after which NASCAR relieved Kenseth of the right to compete in the next two races.

Date	Winner	Car	Avg. Speed	Cautions
10/27/13	Jeff Gordon	Chevy	70.337	17
3/30/14	Kurt Busch	Chevy	72.176	14
10/26/14	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevy	70.725	15
3/29/15	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	68.843	16
11/1/15	Jeff Gordon	Chevy	69.643	18

What happened between Logano and Kenseth was extraordinary, and notorious, but the current prospects should raise the security alert a few notches over the next month. Three of the next four races are at "short tracks," which, by definition, are tracks shorter than a mile in circumference. Martinsville measures .526 miles. Bristol (April 17) is .533 miles; Richmond (April 24) is .75 miles.

The first five races were contested on tracks measuring 2.5 (Daytona), 1.540 (Atlanta), 1.5 (Las Vegas), 1.0 (Phoenix) and 2.0 (Fontana) miles. Only Phoenix, where Kevin Harvick won, is remotely similar to the action that will take place at Martinsville in the STP 500.

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Kenseth, whose antics last fall might have been considered something of a psychotic episode had they not been obviously calculated, talked about short tracks before this stretch of races a year ago.

"Whenever you run really [well], you want to feel like the driver made a huge difference," he said. "I don't know that the driver makes any more or less of a difference than a lot of other tracks. Certainly, there are some tracks—Daytona and Talladega, places like that—where going fast doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with talent, but I think every track is very unique, but no matter how good you think you are at a certain track, if your car doesn't do what you need it to do, you're not going to run up front. It's just too competitive.

"Every week, we all work as hard as we can to try to make the cars as fast as we can and try to make them drive as [well] as we can. Certainly, when we get to short tracks, they're less dependent on aerodynamics and even the engine, to a certain extent. If you feel like you have a deficit in those areas, then it doesn't make as big of a difference at a short track."

Martinsville isn't fast, comparatively speaking. It's fast for a flat half-mile shaped like a paper clip. Gordon's average speed last fall was 69.643 mph. Logano won the pole at 98.548. It rewards aggressiveness, though not of the variety used by Kenseth against Logano.

Steve Letarte is now a television commentator, but when Dale Earnhardt Jr. won at Martinsville in October 2014, he was the crew chief.

After that race, Letarte said, "It was a great day, a hard-fought day. Beating and banging all through the field. I think we saw more catastrophic-style crashes. You see a lot of sliding around out there, but [this time] we saw more serious crashes than we've ever seen. That is what the sport has created. It's stressful. It's high pressure. It's what we want."

Acrimony is common at Martinsville. So is payback. What set the most recent race apart was that it powerfully affected the Chase.

In March 2014, Kurt Busch, who went on to win, clashed with Brad Keselowski first on pit road and later on the track.

Keselowski said of Busch, "He does awesome things for charity, and he's probably the most talented race-car driver, but he's also one of the dumbest, so put those three together."

Martinsville is the place where angry drivers come to prowl. It's a place where, if they don't ask for trouble, they look for it.

The racing is neither elegant nor smooth. It's rough, aggressive and occasionally brings out the worst in the drivers.

Could Kenseth and Logano tangle again? Unlikely. Someone will, though.

It's probably just what NASCAR needs at this point in the season.

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All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.