Matt Kenseth won the first two races of the season, but it’s been downhill ever since for the former champion, and Sunday’s race only added to his decline.

Kenseth started 10th but dropped to 21st before the Goody’s 500 was 10 laps old.

During pit stops after 42 laps, Kenseth’s team was cited by NASCAR officials on pit road for losing control of one of the tires that had just been removed from his Ford.

NASCAR said it informed Kenseth’s team that it was being penalized and sent to the tail end of the longest line on the restart, but Kenseth’s team said it never got the message.

The miscommunication proved costly.

When Kenseth got back on the track and failed to heed the call to drop to the back, NASCAR black flagged him, forcing him to drive down pit road at the pit road speed of 30 miles per hour while the field zoomed by under a green flag, putting him a lap down when he returned.

He never recovered, finishing 23rd.

“The unfortunate thing is I wasn’t clear the head official said we had to come in,” Kenseth’s crew chief, Drew Blickensderfer said. “I thought he was telling us, ‘It was close. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.’ That type of thing, and it wasn’t. It was, ‘You messed up the rule,’ so we’ve got to make sure we get our tires back. We can’t have mistakes like that.”

Kenseth has finished 43rd, 12th, 33rd and 23rd in the past four races, and he’s fallen from leading the points to 12th, just seven ahead of No. 13 Jeff Burton.

Hookscenter.com wire report.