Just when we thought that the race was going to go green again, Martin Truex Jr. got loose and spun around on the restart. This wasn’t the NASCAR driver’s first time going around today, but it was the one that took him out of the race. Truex had to exit his car and the race.
A caution came out for Ryan Newman. Then, with 13 laps to go, things were getting going again. Martin Truex Jr. had fought for the lead all day but he just couldn’t get out of the way. Truex went sideways, hit the wall, and Joey Logano went right into him.
Darlington isn’t where we usually get “the big one.” But this was for all intents and purposes “the big one.”
The end of a race at Darlington can just be absolutely filled with chaos. Restarts lead to wrecks, old tires lead to more wrecks, and no one goes home happy except for one team in the very end. A rough end to the day for Martin Truex Jr., but he was able to pick up a good amount of stage points in the process.
I’m sure that win at Dover will make him feel a lot better about this after he reflects a little.
Martin Truex Jr. wreck leads to another
Just as we thought Martin Truex Jr. would be the final wreck of the day, we got more. These restarts at The Lady in Black are tough. Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain were battling in the front and were refusing to let up off of one another.
From one perspective, Chastain drove too hard. From another, Larson should have picked his battle on the restart. It ended with both being wrecked out of the lead and ended what was effectively the best two cars of the day.
I don’t think we are going to see any fight after all of this. But tensions are going to start to rise again. Larson and his team were not happy about what went down. But they will take their two wins this season and move on to the All-Star Race next weekend.
