NASCAR Watkins Glen 2016: Hard feelings linger after crash-filled final lap

While Martin Truex Jr. was able to pardon Brad Keselowski for causing him to spin on the final lap of Sunday’s NASCAR race at Watkins Glen International, Kyle Larson wasn’t so forgiving of AJ Allmendinger, who turned Larson into a guardrail in trying to avoid Truex.

Truex had been running second to leader Denny Hamlin and directly ahead of Keselowski coming to the checkered flag when Keselowski tagged Truex’s rear bumper exiting the final corner of the seven-turn, 2.45-mile road course. Keselowski finished third while Truex was credited with seventh.

When Truex expressed his displeasure with Keselowski several times on the cool down lap by bumping him, it seemed a post-race confrontation might erupt between two. That notion was dismissed when Keselowski approached Truex on pit road immediately following the Cheez-It 355 to apologize, which Truex accepted.

“(Keselowski) said it was his fault. I knew that,” said Truex. “Simple as that. It’s all good. It’s just good, hard racing. I just wanted him to know I wasn’t happy after the race.”

Said Keselowski: “It was obviously my fault when you run into the back of somebody. ... You make a commitment before you know what is going to happen and I made a commitment and it didn’t work out. He got the bad end of it. I hit him from behind and that is my fault.”

That Truex has a victory this season and thus virtually assured of qualifying for NASCAR’s playoffs certainly helped mollify him.

However, although Truex was rather accepting of what transpired after Keselowski apologized, he still was agitated with what occurred. The incident capped a frustrating weekend that included his fast lap during qualifying impeded by the slower car of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who didn’t realize Truex was at-speed.

“I guess (Keselowski) kind of races with that mentality that, ‘Hey, it doesn’t really matter where we finish or if we finish,’” Truex said. “So just have to be mindful of that when we’re around him for the rest of the time.”

But any displeasure Truex may have been feeling was nothing compared to Larson’s annoyance with Allmendinger. Both drivers were running in the top five when Keselowski spun Truex, and Larson tried to avoid incident but as he did Allmendinger drove into the rear of Larson’s No. 42, sending him crashing hard into a guardrail.

“(Allmendinger) is always aggressive -- I figured he would be smart,” Larson said. “Obviously, (Truex) was spinning in front of us. That is a free spot for both of us and [he] just dumped me.

“He has ran me hard, but we always race pretty well, but today was flat out stupid.”

Instead of finishing fifth or better, Larson fell to 29th, a costly loss of valuable points for someone lacking a win and needing every point to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

With four regular season races remaining before the playoffs, Larson is tentatively holding the final transfer position. But should Chris Buescher, who won last week at Pocono Raceway, climb into the top 30 in points -- he’s currently three points behind the 30th position -- the cutline would move, knocking Larson out.

Larson trails 15th-ranked Jamie McMurray by 30 points. Had he not crashed, he’d only be five points behind.

Like Keselowski, Allmendinger, who finished fourth, offered a mea culpa.

“I can’t say sorry enough,” he said. “It doesn’t help the case, I spun him out. I didn’t mean to spin him out. ... He was turning to come back down, but it was my fault. It would be different if we were battling for the win, but I just hate it for him.

“It’s not going to help to say sorry, I know, I would be pissed off. He should be.”

Larson dismissed Allmendinger’s contriteness, suggesting impending payback.

“I love his crew chief (Randall Burnett) to death; he was our engineer last year,” Larson said. “It just sucks; they are going to have to start building some more race cars because he has got a few coming.”