Martin Truex Jr. was clearly frustrated with how this past Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway turned out and made sure everyone on the track around him knew it.
Truex was leading with just two laps to go in the race before NASCAR threw the caution flag after Bubba Wallace turned Kyle Larson on the front straightaway. With overtime looming, Truex and the leaders hit pit road for a crucial pit stop. Truex’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, won the race off pit road with Truex following behind him in second.
On the ensuing restart, Hamlin appeared to leave the restart zone early and according to Truex, “used me up in Turn 1.” Truex, who finished a P4, wasn’t happy with Hamlin. After Hamlin had crossed the checkered line as the winner, Truex accelerated to him and bumped his No. 11 Toyota a few times.
Hamlin, speaking with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on “The Dale Jr. Download” this week, said he doesn’t believe he “did anything wrong to him.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think I did anything wrong to him,” Hamlin said. “I think he’s going to be alright. I think he’s getting the therapy he needs which is out in the woods or he’s fishing and that’s what he needs. Needs a night to sleep on it and get over it. I definitely understood and I empathize with him a little bit. Listen, rightfully so, you were upset for vast reasons, and you deserve to be.”
Hamlin continued: “I think we’ve gotta understand that was the sixth time that he had led over 100 laps at Richmond and has not won. So, he had had enough.”
Martin Truex Jr. falls short at Richmond after leading 228 laps
Earnhardt, once teammates with Truex at Dale Earnhardt, Inc., said he has never seen Truex that animated on the racetrack before.
“I’ve been buddies with him a long time and I always wanted him to be more aggressive,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Think back to when [Joey] Logano run over him at Martinsville and then he’s like, ‘Well, he’s not gonna win the war.’ And then I sit there in the booth for NBC watching the Homestead race and it comes down to between him and Truex. Here comes the 22 drives right around the outside of him and I’m like, ‘Damnit, why didn’t you hit him or something?’
“So, he’s bashing into the 5 [Larson] on the back straightaway coming to the checkered and all that stuff and I was like, ‘Woah!’ He was as hot as I’ve ever seen him.”
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