From #56-Martin Truex, Jr.s media availability Friday morning at Chicagoland Speedway: Do you think the sanctions issued to MWR were fair? ‘All I did the last two weeks was drive my heart out. I broke my wrist at Bristol. I found out this week that I have two broken bones in there, not just one, which makes things even more difficult. The last two weeks, we raced our hearts out. I didnt “ when the race was over, I wasnt aware of what happened, what the cautions were for. I didnt know the #55 (Brian Vickers) pitted at the end. Its tough to swallow. Its a difficult situation, like I said , for all of us. Just ready to move on. I went from feeling like I really climbed a mountain in that race at Richmond to going to be knocked out of the Chase and all that. Do I think its fair? You know, I dont know. I dont run the sport, so well just have to deal with it.” Have Michael Waltrip (MWR owner) or Ty Norris (MWR general manager) apologized? ‘Ty (Norris, MWR general manager) did, yeah. He straight up said, ‘I screwed up, it was the heat of the moment and made a bad decision. Things happen. Again, that stuff happened and just gave us a chance. It didnt put us in. I wasnt in until the last lap. I passed the #16 (Greg Biffle) on the very last lap and thats what put us in. We were tied with (Ryan) Newman. It went to second-place finishes “ thats what got us in. It gave us a chance. Obviously, people thought it was unfair and we are where we are.” How did you feel when you first heard about the penalties and that you werent going to be in this years Chase? ‘To be honest with you, I cant even tell you. This week has been kind of surreal “ again, going from Saturday night feeling like we really accomplished something to getting it taken away from us. Its been a tough week, but just have to thank my team and everybody for standing behind me. Were going to come through this just fine. We just “ Im glad to be back at the race track, like I said. Glad to be back in the race car and try to get this wrist healed up and go win some races.” How would you feel if NASCAR adds Jeff Gordon to the Chase? ‘Well, my team deserves to be in this Chase as much as any of those teams. If theyre going to start putting people back in, they ought to consider us, too.” Where do you draw the line regarding team orders? ‘I dont even know how to answer that. This is a team sport. I dont own the race car. At the same time, everybody on every team “ driver, crew chief, owner “ it doesnt matter who it is, all they want every weekend is to do the best they can do. Nobody is going to just pull over for the sake of a teammate or something stupid that hurts their reputation or hurts their finish. Thats not what were here for.”(Toyota Racing PR)
