Dale Jr. unhappy with teammate Martin
DALE JR
On the incident: “He knew I was up there. He was just running hard. If the tables were turned I’d been smarter and given him plenty of room than he gave me. He’s older than me and been racing forever and knows a lot more (stuff) … and he’s forgot more stuff than I’ll ever know. Still I take better care of people than that.
Asked if he was surprised to see that type of racing from Martin, Dale Jr. said: “I don’t know. I just do a better job. I take better care of people than that. Now that I know what to expect in a situation like that, I’ll still drive on the outside of him and hopefully he won’t run me into the wall.’’
Asked again to explain what happened: “I got on the outside of Mark and he just come on up and drove us into the fence off the corner. I don’t know if his spotter wasn’t spotting good or he just couldn’t see good or what? Just ran us flat into the wall. I don’t know how else to explain it. It blew the right front tire out of it eventually. We had gotten the car pretty good at that point and were moving forward. I don’t know. The car went away from us in the middle of the race. I guess we can try to get out stuff together and go back the next week and try to see what we can do.’’
MARK MARTIN
On what happened: “He got up on the outside of me coming off the corner and I squeezed him. It was an accident. We had an accident.’’
Told Dale Jr. was not happy and if roles were reversed would have treated Martin differently, Martin said: “I would have given him room if I’d known he was there. It was too late. I had my front wheels cut and I let off the gas and that’s all I could do at that point. My mistake. My mistake.’’
Asked about talking it over with Dale Jr., Martin said: “I don’t have a history of having problems. I think we’ll get it sorted out. I feel like I give everybody on the race track plenty of respect. I made a mistake.’’