Martin Truex Jr Goes All Out After Troubles at Richmond

Martin Truex Jr entered Richmond Raceway on Sunday as one of the favorites to win. He had a fair amount of experience in winning at the short track with three career wins. But in what turned out to be a quiet and relatively uneventful race, Truex could only manage a 7th-place finish.

With the Toyotas dominating a good part of the race, Truex was expected to get ahead of the pack gradually. But the course of events turned out differently. The winner of the New Hampshire race eventually got frustrated as the race progressed and, in an outburst of fury, slammed his team for troubles in communication.

“I’m getting sick of this”: Martin Truex Jr bashes his team

The Camrys were enjoying a great run and good pace in the race’s first stage. Dominating the proceedings at the end of Stage 1, the 23XI duo of Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, and team owner Denny Hamlin finished at the the top three places. Truex, on the other hand, had the lead, albeit for a short amount of time. Recovering a deficit of 5.7 seconds, surprise winner Chris Buescher reclaimed his lead from Truex after passing him in the second stage of the race with 96 laps to go.

One of the many issues that Truex was concerned by during the race was his team radio. Experiencing turbulence in communication from a single side can sometimes harm drivers. Especially considering the importance of communicating on-track incidents to the driver. Unable to grasp the words being conveyed to him, Truex vented out his frustration on the radio, as he blurted his frustration out.

He said, “I can’t understand your piece of sh** radio. I’m getting sick of this,” as reported by prominent NASCAR journalist Jordan Bianchi on his Twitter handle.

Another issue that really troubled him was the temperature. Racing in the scorching heat was quite tough for the drivers. Hamlin’s car had been equipped with a thermometer and a camera to record the temperature through the race. Very rarely did the temperature inside Hamlin’s car go below 125 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very close to the upper limit for this time of the year. Truex reflected on the same. Speaking after the race, he said,

“It was definitely really, really hot. It felt longer than 400 laps. I’ll be honest, when we got to the end of stage two —– I thought there was no way. I thought that was the checkered flag. It just felt really, really long.”

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The race was particularly incredible for RFK Racing. Team owner Brad Keselowski put up a strong show and took a second-stage win while Chris Buescher maintained his clean and unaffected style of racing to steer clear of everyone. Manufacturers Ford will be impressed with the race after seeing their drivers occupy four positions in the top six. Following Buescher were Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch who made a remarkable turnaround to gain positions after losing out on the top 10. The Fords of Joey Logano and Ryan Preece rounded up the top five places.

A third-place finish for Busch also means he will look to continue his charge for the regular season championship. Although not quite the big loss, Truex is very aware of Rowdy’s abilities and will look to maintain caution. Meanwhile, Tyler Reddick got handed a penalty for violating the commitment line in the pit stop after not having all four tires in the orange zone. A disappointing P16 result from him after taking the Busch Light pole in the qualifying session.

His 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace similarly couldn’t maintain his position higher up the grid as he fell down to 12th after battling for the lead in in the initial two stages. His race was also marred by pit crew errors. In his first pit stop, the #23 crew delayed the change of tires due to a jacked-up wheel during the pit stop. The playoff bubble battle also played a crucial part for the drivers today. Alas drivers hopeful of a win like Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman didn’t get it, but many invaluable points for the HMS duo, as well as Bubba Wallace and Michael McDowell.

The race didn’t offer much for the fans in terms of drama or controversy but clean and fair racing on a short track, but brought out the best in some unexpected names and the surprise winner.

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