MARTINSVILLE, Va. – While Joey Logano was celebrating on the frontstretch Sunday evening at Martinsville Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. was yards away fuming on pit road after victory was snatched from his grasp on the final lap.
Truex led the field at the white flag of Sunday’s First Data 500, chasing his first win in 78 short-track starts. He had worked inside of Logano coming off turn four and cleared the No. 22 Ford for the top spot exiting the second corner for the final time, but Logano was not going to be denied.
Logano gave a well-placed shot to Truex’s back bumper entering turn three and moved the No. 78 Toyota up the track, racing to the inside as Truex tried to gather his car up and mount a final charge.
Exiting turn four, Truex worked back to Logano’s outside but got loose under acceleration, nearly spinning down the track into the side of his rival before losing momentum and fading to third under the checkered flag.
Logano’s message after the race was simple: he was worried about getting to Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway with a shot to win the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Truex’s response to that message was terse, but equally clear.
“They may have won the battle today, but he’s not going to win the damn war,” said a furious Truex. “I’m just not going to let him win it. I’m going to win it. That’s it.”
After catching Logano with seven to go, getting to his inside with five laps left and doing everything possible not to make significant contact in the closing stages, Truex felt he should have been raced with that same level of respect at the end.
“I was next to him for six laps. I never knocked him out of the way,” said Truex. “We were going to race hard for it in my book. I cleared him fair and square. We weren’t even banging doors for me to pass him. I just took a cheap shot at the end there. He drove into the back of me and knocked me out of the way.
“That may be short track racing, but what goes around comes around.”
In the end, Truex went from a guaranteed spot in the championship round to third on the playoff grid, tied with Kevin Harvick at 25 points above the cut line to advance to Homestead.
While it was a seismic shift for the Furniture Row Racing team, it was equally seismic from the perspective that Truex felt he finally had his first short-track victory all sewn up.
“We had an absolutely awesome race car all day long and did what we had to do to put ourselves into position to win for the first time here at Martinsville and get our first short track win,” Truex said. “I’m so proud of my team and proud of all our guys. This is the kind of day we had to come here and have.
“I really wanted to win that race and feel like we definitely deserved it,” added Truex, who started from the rear of the field after failing post-qualifying inspection and didn’t lead at all until lap 360. “We raced him (Logano) all clean. We passed him clean all day long and flat outran him in the long run, but I pretty much had a feeling going to the backstretch that would happen. There was nothing I could do about it.”
Truex left with an ominous warning and a reminder that his memory will last the next three weeks.
“This flat sucks, but that’s the way it goes,” he said. “I can promise you I won’t forget what he did.”
