Kyle Petty shared his thoughts following a heated exchange between Martin Truex Jr. and his crew chief James Small that occurred towards the end of the race at Richmond Raceway on Sunday.
Kyle Petty via NASCAR YouTube
After a late race caution allowed the drivers to come down pit road to get new tires, Martin Truex Jr.’s team did not have any sticker tires left given they had already used all their sets of tires up earlier in the race and were forced to put on a set of 7-lap scuff tires.
Truex Jr. restarted the race in third, but the wear on his tires quickly surfaced as he faded to 11th and never really had a shot at contending for the win with Kyle Larson and Josh Berry.
Following the last restart, Truex Jr. expressed his frustration over the radio saying, What a f***ing nightmare.” Small responded, “I know it. Just survive here.” Truex Jr. replied, “My tires are flat.”
At the end of the race, Small then radioed into Truex saying, “We f***ing hosed ourselves. We were f***ing out of tires. We had that seven laps scuff there. So we were f***ed.”
Truex replied, “I don’t understand what you just said. But that was pitiful.” Small then angrily replied, “Had f***ing scuff tires on there because we hosed ourselves taking a set in stage one. So we were f***ed regardless. Sorry, we f***ed up.”
“You didn’t tell me you put scuffs on,” Truex responded. “So I didn’t know what the f*** was wrong, okay? Jesus.” Small retorted, “There was no point in telling you. We’re f***ed either way.”
Petty reacted to the heated exchange saying, “There’s a lot of layers to this onion and it’s not just what happened. We go back to last year. There were times on the radio when Martin just went at James and James went back at him. So this is a two-way street. We’re not blaming this on Martin Truex in the car and I’m not blaming it on James Small on the box.”
“But what you get into is that erodes the relationship and that erodes the respect for each other,” Petty detailed. “[Truex] had such a huge amount of respect for Cole Pern. He looked at Cole Pern and said, ‘If Cole puts me in a position he’s got my best interests at heart and he knows we’re gonna have an opportunity to win this race.'”
Martin Truex Jr. via NASCAR YouTube
RELATED: Denny Hamlin Apologizes To J.J. Yeley, Explains Why And How He Spun Him Out
“I don’t believe that Martin Truex believes in James Small that way. I just don’t believe it,” Petty asserted. “I don’t ever remember Martin second guessing Cole Pern. He might have and I just missed it. And if I did, I apologize, but I just don’t remember that.”
“What we get into in a lot of ways is you build relationship with anybody when you start to build a friendship and there’s a line, and you begin to move that line and at some point in time that line finds its natural place, and you can live with that relationship and I can live with that relationship. If we can’t we’re just not friends anymore, we walk away,” he explained.
“And that’s going to be the interesting thing to see who walks away, who makes a change,” he highlighted. “Does Gibbs and those guys step in to make Martin? To make James Small happy? Because I think we’re getting to a point where this is not a viable option.”
Martin Truex Jr. via NASCAR YouTube
“When the day goes away like that you’ve just got to pick up the pieces and go to the next race,” Petty pointed out. “Martin seems to want to blame James for everything that goes on, or everything that has happened.”
“And that’s just part of the game, man. You live as a team, you die as a team. That’s the way it is and when it becomes an individual sport then the game needs to be played with a different group of players. So I think we’re really close to that. I think we’re really close to that and I think we’re seeing the beginning of the end in this situation for these two guys,” Petty concluded.
Martin Truex Jr. via NASCAR YouTube
What do you make of Petty’s comments? Do you think Truex Jr. and James Small might be going their separate ways in the near future?