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NASCAR CUP SERIES: QUAKER STATE 400 presented by WALMARTJuly 12, 2020Martin Truex, Jr.Sparta, Kentucky THE MODERATOR: We have Martin Truex Jr. here. Take us through that final restart quickly. MARTIN TRUEX JR.: Final restart, just got a good launch there. The 4 car cleared off of two, I tried to jump in behind him. Miss‑timed it a little bit. Got into his left rear. Turned him down the track sideways. Was able to get into his right side going down three. Just tried to keep momentum up. He run me pretty high. I think obviously the 12 made it three‑wide by that point. I was in the marbles just trying to get going. Was able to clear those two. Obviously the 41 came with the big head of steam. There was no way I was going to be able to block that. Pretty wild restarts at the end. Unfortunate for us to lose the lead there twice with the caution coming at the wrong time. That's just part of the deal, how these things go. Obviously proud of the run today. Our Auto‑Owners Camry was really fast. Feels good to kind of feel like we're getting back around to some things. Proud of the effort and I know some wins are coming. THE MODERATOR: We will now go to questions. Q. Cole started sixth on the last restart. Should we be surprised somebody starts sixth and does that? How does somebody do that and win the race? MARTIN TRUEX JR.: Yeah, you know, he was able to keep his momentum up obviously. We were all tanking, battling, side‑by‑side, three‑wide, all that mess. These things are all about momentum. Obviously he was just able to keep his momentum going. We all kind of came together there going into three. He was able to take advantage of it. Obviously the outside is most of the time where you want to be. You get a green‑white‑checkered, a lot of crazy things can happen. Guys are just pushing and shoving. Yeah, just the right place at the right time, I guess. I haven't seen it yet. Q. Do you have a feeling like you threw this one away? Is that just the nature of restarts? MARTIN TRUEX JR.: Well, I mean, no, I definitely didn't throw it away. I didn't have the control of the restart on the last one. Really for me, it was most likely probably going to run second just because of the way the restarts are here. When you're on the bottom, it's just not that good. Again, it was unfortunate the way we lost the lead. It was just based on the timing lines, when the caution fell on those two restarts, on the first restart where I lost the lead. Second time, I just worked on getting to the 4 car. I got inside him. We were side‑by‑side down the frontstretch. The caution falls. He gets the lead by four‑thousandths of a second. When you have control of the restart on the outside, it's definitely the best place to be. He was probably going to race if I didn't screw up, which I apologized to him for. He understands. It's the nature of these races. It's all momentum. You got to be in the right lane on the restarts. Q. I heard on your radio you said you didn't know the 41 car was coming. Could you have done anything differently fighting the 4? MARTIN TRUEX JR.: I had just cleared the 4. Just as I got off the 4 and got straight, the 41 was to my outside. I didn't hear him, expect him to come. I don't know that my spotter seen it coming. By the time he told me, he was already next to me. There was no way I could even try to block. At the same time I think he had so much momentum, I don't know that I could have blocked him anyway without crashing us both. Again, he had his momentum going. We were three‑wide. I was in the marbles through three and four pretty much. Not much I could have done different there. Q. You said you had already spoken with Kevin, there was some understanding between the two of you guys on what happened there. MARTIN TRUEX JR.: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like I said, I tried to slide up behind him off of two there so I didn't get freight trained. I clipped his rear enough to turn him sideways. I told him obviously that was my bad. He knew it. Kevin and I have raced hard and clean all the time. It was just a little judgment error on my part. Luckily he hung onto it, was able to keep rolling. Q. With as much respect as you have between the two of you, how important was it for you to find him after the race? MARTIN TRUEX JR.: I think it's always important to get it out of the way quickly. I know Kevin well. We've raced together a long time. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. Like I said, typically we don't have any issues. I just misjudged getting in behind him. I felt bad about that. I think I probably took away his chance to win the race. I just wanted him and Rodney and his guys to know, hey, it's on me, my bad. Can't go back and change it now. Definitely was sorry that I did it. THE MODERATOR: Martin, thanks for joining us. We'll see you at the Bristol All‑Star Race. MARTIN TRUEX JR.: See y'all, thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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