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Roger Penske was far from happy with Martin Truex Jr.'s comment on his team's driver Joey Logano, after the #22 driver claimed the 2018 Martinsville Speedway win. Penske, the owner of Team Penske, was of the opinion that such type of comments from a racing driver were unwarranted.
Logano of Team Penske won the First Data 500 race that took place at Martinsville Speedway. It was the 33rd race of the 2018 Monster Cup Series season and was contested over 500 laps on the 0.526-mile track.
The #22 driver who started the race from 11th on the grid, advanced to second position in stage 1 and then moved up to the first position in stage 2. Logano continued to lead the race and claimed the victory ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin and Furniture Row Racing's Martin Truex Jr.
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However, after the race, the defending Cup Series champion, Truex Jr. commented that Logano, who raced him hard, might have won a race but not the championship. He then linked it with a war quote. This was immediately noticed by Roger Penske, the owner of Team Penske, who slammed the FRR driver.
"He’s a racer and should know better than to say that," Penske told NASCAR in the post-race interview. "That was as clean a shot as you can have in a race like this. I didn’t hear Kyle Busch or (Kyle Larson) have any kind of that conversation after that (Chicagoland) race. To me, I’m really looking forward. We want to go to Miami."
Following this, Roger Penske lauded Joey Logano, who claimed the 20th Cup Series victory of his career.
"Joey ran a great race. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just a comment that I don’t think we deserve. We’ll race him day after day. (That’s just) stirring some controversy that he’s trying to spread. From my perspective, Joey drove a great race. The team won on pit road. You can see that, how many times he got out front. Leading the number of laps shows the kind of car we had and the job that Todd (Gordon, crew chief) and the team did. That’s my position."
Truex Jr. started the race from sixth place and was in contention for the win throughout. He finished stage one in seventh place, stage two fourth, and in the end, went home empty-handed in the final stage.
What did Martin Truex Jr. say about Joey Logano after the 2018 Martinsville race that upset Roger Penske?
Following the completion of the race, Martin Truex Jr. appeared for an interview, where he took a dig at Joey Logano which eventually upset Roger Penske. He was certainly unhappy after how Logano raced him in Martinsville. Here's what he said:
"He may have won the battle but he ain't winning the d**n war!"
However, Logano was unapologetic, as he felt he was right to race hard. He stated:
"Hey, I expect to get raced the way I race people," Logano said (via ESPN). "I'm a hard racer. I expect to get raced hard. I said it before, we didn't crash each other. I didn't crash him. I moved him up enough to have a drag race."
Interestingly, Joey Logano indeed won the "war" as the Roger Penske-owned outfit's driver ended up winning the championship that season, which was the first of his three NASCAR Cup Series titles.
