One of the biggest retirement news came in this year when Martin Truex Jr decided to retire from full-time racing. The 44-year-old driver has decided to step away from his duties at Joe Gibbs Racing after the end of the 2024 season. While there were hopes that the No. 19 driver would win a race before saying goodbye to NASCAR, it looks like Truex Jr has ended his career on a winless streak.

There was a silver lining for Martin Truex Jr fans as he managed to make it into the top 16, but unfortunately got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Bristol was his last shot to fight for the championship, but things went south for him when he was penalized for speeding on the pit road. Finishing 24th in his final playoff race, Martin Truex Jr was 21 points short of making it into the top 12. So when the race concluded, some drama was expected. However, everything that transpired took place off-camera.

Martin Truex Jr’s crew chief’s spat with Joe Gibbs Racing

As of now, there is no saying what went down after the Bristol race at the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 garage. All that fans have is some audio-less footage where James Small, Truex’s crew chief, seemed to be going off at the team.

A post surfaced on Reddit where a fan took notice of the crew chief’s conversation with the JGR higher-up and, according to them, it was a heated discussion. Bringing some credibility to the story is the fact that Kevin Harvick also discussed this briefly on his podcast.

The post on Reddit was titled, “James Small conflict after Bristol at the tailgate of the 19 hauler?” This post was made by the original poster, as they did not see any news about the incident on X or Reddit. Trying to learn more about the situation, the poster asked other fans if they had any information about what went down.

Many fans saw the post and some of them made their way into the comments section. That’s where they shared what they knew about the discussion between the JGR crew chief and the higher-ups.

Knowing that Martin Truex Jr did not have a good race at Bristol, it’s obvious that there was frustration in the team, but ultimately, there is no clear information. As there was no report of what happened, fans started to theorize the possible situations as to why the two JGR figures were allegedly arguing.

Fans predict the “heated conversation” between James Small and the JGR executive

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One fan saw the post on Reddit and it made them understand why James Small was acting “strange.” After seeing the post, they had a slight idea as to what was going down, leading them to comment, “So that’s why this dude was acting so strange on the broadcast. Guess it worked, because I never noticed the animated discussion going on behind them until now.”

Another fan joined the comment thread to reply to the above comment, saying, “That makes so much more sense now. Everyone was correct; he was trying to hide something, but it was to give his CC some privacy while he bi**hed out management instead of some off-track shenanigans.” This fan also believes that James Small was hiding something, but it was all kept away from the public eye. Their guess was that James Small had something to say about the management, and that’s why things were kept off-air.

During the broadcast, this fan noticed that the camera was pointed at James Small while he was discussing something with a member from JGR. In their comment, they posted, “Ok, I was like, what the fuck is the cameraman doing here, lol. This explains a lot!” Almost everyone in the comments was on the same page with the fact that whatever Small spoke to the executive about was not something that the fans or other teams could know.

“He’s gone next year,” said one fan who is predicting that James Small won’t be with Joe Gibbs Racing next year, likely because of the argument. With Martin Truex Jr leaving the team and Chase Briscoe taking his place, the fan speculated that there is a chance that they might bring in a new crew chief.

If you were wondering who the new crew chief might be, another fan commented to say, “I mean… Id rather have Boswell on the 19 box with Briscoe next year than Small.” This leads others to believe that fans partially hold Small responsible for Truex Jr having a difficult season and having a new chief could fix the No. 19 problem. Hopefully, with a new crew chief, JGR will be able to win more races to make up for Truex Jr’s 43-race winless streak.

Judging from this, do you think that James Small will be replaced in JGR after this season? Share your thoughts in the comments below.