Denny Hamlin reacts to Taylor Gray, Christian Eckes incident in Truck Series race
With five laps to go in last Friday’s Truck Series race at Martinsville, Christian Eckes delivered a shot to the rear bumper of race-leader Taylor Gray in Turn 3, sending the Tricon Garage driver up the track, a move which led to his fourth win of the season.
Eckes had dominated the race up to that point, but Gray, who hit the pits after the Lap 164 caution for four fresh tires, surged through the field and cleared Eckes on the race’s final restart. Gray needed a victory to advance to the Championship 4 at Phoenix this Friday, while Eckes had already secured his spot. Fireworks ensued after the race on pit road, with Gray, who finished fourth, confronting Eckes.
Denny Hamlin said on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that he saw both sides of it. Hamlin, however, believes “we’ve numbed ourselves to clean racing.”
“It’s very disappointing for Taylor because they had a strategy, they had newer tires, drove through the field pretty cleanly, got to the lead pretty cleanly and just got shipped into the corner,” Hamlin said. “… Why should Christian care? He felt like he had the best truck and the only way someone was gonna beat him was through strategy. They did, they were going to, and he said no.
“That’s a decision that Christian made. Sometimes you gotta live with that decision. Now, he’s gonna be racing against that same organization in the Championship 4 this next weekend with Corey Heim. Certainly, you would think everyone at Tricon is thinking, ‘You race the s*** out of the 19 [Eckes] at all costs.’
“… Christian got the win. He didn’t need to win, but I see both sides of it. You can say man, that’s not racing. I passed you clean, and you didn’t even give him a chance to make the corner. That’s dirty, but that’s what happens now. We’ve numbed ourselves to clean racing.”
Taylor Gray confronts, vows revenge after Christian Eckes wins in physical finish at Martinsville
While there was no physical contact, Eckes got an earful from a visibly angry Gray.
“Don’t f***ing ship me into the f***ing fence,” Gray said. “Race me like I f***ing did to you. I barely got you. Do you know how many chances I had to ship you into the f***ing fence?”
Eckes, who led 187 of 200 laps, didn’t want to let a dominant performance fall by the wayside.
“These guys work way too hard for us to lose a race regardless of the circumstances,” Eckes said. “I had to race harder than I probably would like to. But at the end of the day, I didn’t want to lose that race. We led 187 laps of 200 so it’s just kind of a situation where I don’t want to race like that, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to let us lose.”
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