Martin Truex Jr. believed he had the best contending car inside the top-five inside of the closing laps of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The margin of victory from Brad Keselowski to Truex was just .218 seconds, but the 2017 champion felt like he should have had more than a lap and a half to set-up a winning move due in part to Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who was one lap down and between the leaders inside the final 10 laps.
Truex had several choice words for Stenhouse over his team’s radio, a sentiment that bled over into post-race interviews.
Truex mad at lappers
"Get off the fucking bottom."
"Yeah, I’m a lot frustrated, you know — lapped cars," Truex said after the race. "They just have no respect for the leaders running for the win. It’s completely uncalled for, ridiculous. It’s a shame. We lined up on that last restart behind all those guys that are a lap down and I know they were racing for the lucky dog, which is all good, but once they got strung out, the 17 (Stenhouse) had a straightaway on all of me and he just wouldn’t let me by."
Despite being a lap down, Stenhouse was amongst the drivers placed behind leaders Joey Logano and Kurt Busch, but in front of the wave-around lead lap cars, due to a caution coming out right in the middle of green flag stops with 52 laps remaining.
Truex wishes Stenhouse would have moved up the track once it was apparent he wasn’t going to get back in contention.
"He just kept hugging the bottom, hugging the bottom, hugging the bottom and knew that’s where I needed to run," Truex said. "I kept telling – my spotter kept telling his we need the bottom. These cars punch such a big hole and it’s so bad in dirty air, it completely killed us for 25, 30 laps to the point my front tires were gone once I finally got by him. Hell, I still ran down the 2 (Brad Keselowski) in two laps from half a straightaway. We clearly had the best car and were in position to win. Guys a lap down have to have a little more respect than that."
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