“You Should Be Penalized”: Why Martin Truex Jr. Was Unlucky With Denny Hamlin Call

Martin Truex Jr. was the unluckiest of them all in Sunday’s race at Richmond. He led 228 laps and won a stage to dominate the day only to lose it all in the end and suffer defeat at the hands of his teammate Denny Hamlin. While NASCAR has explained why it chose not to penalize Hamlin for his controversial restart toward the race end, several believe that the promotion is at fault for its call.

Racing icon Jeff Burton and former Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Steve Letarte dissected Hamlin’s late-race moves on “Motorsports on NBC” and provided their takes on it. Burton strongly suggested that rules were there for a reason and by jumping his restart, Hamlin gained an unfair advantage over Truex Jr. He said, “If you go early I think you should be penalized just because the guy on the outside knows the rule as well and he’s trying to stay within the rules.”

A concern that Burton had was how NASCAR would react when other drivers jumped the restart as Hamlin did in earlier stages of the race. He continued to note that Truex Jr. was unlucky with the caution and a bad pit stop and put together, they were the reason behind his anger. Burton did not see it as something directed solely towards Hamlin.

Truex Jr. took out his frustration by knocking at the back of Hamlin’s car repeatedly after crossing the checkered flag. He also made contact with Kyle Larson’s Chevrolet while still in the race. Thankfully, his emotions did not boil over to the level of spoiling a contender’s race. Talking about its call to acquit Hamlin, NASCAR explained why it purposefully ignored some hard-set rules.

NASCAR details its controversial restart decision in Richmond

Talking on his weekly appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NASCAR’s VP of competition, Elton Sawyer, said that the race leader controls the restart and will continue to do so. While he acknowledged that Hamlin went a little early while restarting, officials did not deem it an offense worthy of penalization considering the late point in the race.

“You make the call and at that point in time in the race (at the end), there’s not a lot of opportunity there to undo that — but you want to make sure you get it right,” he said. “Because he was the leader, he did get some of that benefit. If he’s not the leader, then it’s a whole different conversation that we’re having.” Unfortunately for Martin Truex Jr, he was the one who’d to pay the price for the unspoken rules.