Joe Gibbs might part ways with either Martin Truex Jr. or James Small after Richmond fallout, claims Kyle Petty
Martin Truex Jr. is yet to score a point-scoring race win this season, and he was winless the whole of 2022.
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Kyle Petty and Martin Truex Jr.
The Richmond Cup race was a tough day at the office for the whole Toyota garage. Joe Gibbs Racing and 23X1 Racing Camry were fast the whole days, but the team’s and driver lacked execution. Other than Cristopher Bell, who finished in the Top 5 once again, the rest 5 were either unlucky or drove poorly. The most disappointed among them is veteran Martin Truex Jr., who was a contender for the win till the final stages.
Truex Jr. finished the race on P11, and his poor day was down to the mistakes of his crew. The No:19 had a scuff tire for the final laps. His new crew chief James Small failed to manage the tire the right way and missed key information during his communication with the driver. The duo had a heated exchange at the end on the team radio and seemed to blame each other for the disastrous day. Now retired NASCAR driver Kyle Petty has claimed that JGR has to a critical decision about the duo.
“That’s going to be the interesting thing to see — who walks away? Who makes a change? Do Gibbs and those guys step in to make Martin happy, to make James Small happy? I think we are getting to a point where this is not a viable option,” Kyle Petty said.
“When the day goes away like that, you’ve just got to pick up the pieces and go to the next race. Martin wants to seem to blame James for everything that goes on, for everything that has happened. That’s part of the game, man. Live as a team, and die as a team. That’s the way it is,” Petty added.
“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 explained.
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The explosive radio interaction between Martin Truex Jr. and James Small at Richmond
James Small was the first to express his frustration as he told Truex Jr. that they screwed up. He said, “Sorry we fucking hosed ourselves. We were fucking out of tires. We had seven lap scuffs, so we were fucked,”. The former Cup champion didn’t understand the message and responded, “I don’t know what you just said, but that was pitiful,”.
Small replied to his driver, “We had fucking scuffed tires on there because we hosed ourselves taking a set in Stage 1, so we were fucked regardless. Sorry, we fucked up,”. While responding in frustration, Small pointed out that they were using scuffs.
The driver was surprised as he wasn’t informed about the tires and was confused towards the end of the race. He said, “You didn’t tell me you put scuffs on, so I didn’t know what the fuck was wrong, okay…Jesus.” Small responded, “There was no point in telling you; we were fucked either way.”
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Justin P Joy
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