KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Joey Logano could have backed off. He could have let Matt Kenseth drive away. He could have prevented all kinds of controversy by deciding that second place was good enough.

Instead, he decided to go for first.

Logano got under Kenseth entering Turn 1 with five laps remaining in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway, sending him spinning across the track. Logano ultimately drove away for his second straight win in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, while Kenseth was left in a win-or-else situation heading into next weekend’s race at Talladega.

“That’s good, hard racing,” said Logano, who was already assured of a spot in the next round of the Chase thanks to his win last week at Charlotte. “We were racing each other really hard. I felt like I got fenced twice. He raced me hard so I raced him back.”

Kenseth had every reason to race hard. He had a difficult run at Charlotte, leaving him in a dire situation in trying to make it to the final eight in the “eliminator” round of the playoffs.

“I’m really disappointed,” Kenseth said. “I was running the lane he wanted to run in, but my goodness, isn’t this racing? Strategically, I think it wasn’t the smartest move on his part. He’ll probably sleep good tonight. I hope he enjoys that one. It’s not what I would have done.”

Kenseth wound up leading a race-high 153 laps, but his wild ride with a handful to go dropped him to 14th in the race and, more importantly, last among the 12 drivers in the title race.

“I don’t like to see that any more than anybody else,” said Roger Penske, who owns Logano’s team. “It’s one of those racing accidents. It’s real tough when it’s in this kind of a situation, but there was no question Kenseth was doing everything he could to keep Joey from going by.”

So, Logano did everything he could to get by.

“I saw two guys racing their butts off,” said his crew chief, Todd Gordon. “Joey had a couple runs at Matt and Matt blocked both of them and unfortunately got us in the wall.”