What Happened?
Martin Truex Jr. held off Ross Chastain with only two fresh tires after a late-race restart to claim his first victory since 2021 at Dover Motor Speedway on Monday, May 1. Ryan Blaney, William Byron and Denny Hamlin completed the top five finishers.
The 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion snapped a 54-race losing streak with his victory and swept the weekend for the Truex name after his brother Ryan Truex won Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
But What Really Happened?
Here we go again.
At one point or another, chances are that Chastain has probably at least been the cause of a wreck involving your favorite driver. Heck, he might have done it just recently on Monday if you’re a Kyle Larson fan.
But if you’re a fan of Larson – or Brennan Poole for that matter – you should be happy to know that the Melon Man apologized for the contact immediately after on the radio. He, as he has done in the past, stated that he did not mean to cause the incident.
And you know what? Maybe he didn’t. He very likely doesn’t like being the brunt of the “Thanks Ross” jokes that we’ve all seen on social media. He also likely doesn’t like to have to watch his list of friends dwindle within the Cup garage area week after week. When Chastain apologizes, he probably does mean it.
But frankly, that doesn’t matter anymore.
As FOX commentator Clint Bowyer hinted at on the broadcast, Chastain being the cause of a crash that involves other drivers has become almost a matter of “when” rather than “if.”
Why does it keep happening then?
NASCAR has always been a self-policing sport, as drivers often retaliate in the same fashion they were wronged. So, when will a driver finally retaliate? Who will climb out of the car after shoving Chastain the wrong way and say to the swarming media scrum, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”?
Because so far, despite all of the griping, groaning and finger pointing aimed at the No. 1, nobody has done so.
Drivers can fight back all they like when it comes to retaliation. On Monday, Larson returned to the racetrack with a damaged car to score what points he could. Although, in the closing laps of the race when Chastain was trying to run down race leader Truex, Larson blocked the No. 1 for a number of laps and pushed him behind the leader by over a second.