Denny Hamlin says Martin Truex Jr 'kicked our teeth in' at New Hampshire

Denny Hamlin put some respect on the name of Martin Truex Jr. during his Actions Detrimental podcast following New Hampshire.

The NASCAR veteran waxed poetic regarding his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate’s performance in victory, explaining how Truex absolutely dominated the competition during Monday’s race.

“The Cup race, man oh man, Martin Truex just, kicked our teeth in,” relented Hamlin. “… Martin Truex victories usually aren’t very exciting ones, because when he wins, he wins big.

“He’s a ten-run baseball game. He’s a three-touchdown football game. Just — it was right from the first lap of practice, he just had the field covered.”

That’s a great comparison for a Truex win, who’s dominated races in a fashion we don’t usually see over recent seasons. According to Hamlin, when Truex and his team are hitting on all cylinders, it spells a long weekend for the sport.

“He’s really, really good. Really good,” added Hamlin. “And when they hit on it, I mean, we know what they have in their car, right? I mean, we — we drive differently, so it’s very hard to just cut and paste and say, ‘Well surely if I ran exactly what he did, I’d have the same result,’ I wouldn’t, first of all.

“But man, they just — I don’t know. It’s like, when he has speed in practice, you can just count on him leading 200 laps, wherever we’re at. Like it’s just, when they unload fast, they’re fast the whole weekend, and I really can’t tell you why, that when they win it’s so dominating. But it is. Like there’s not many like, he wins on the last, you know, late race restart. … If I knew the answer, then I’d do it.”

As for Hamlin’s own performance, he wasn’t happy with coming home P7, as he explained he simply “wasn’t fast” on Monday.

“On the 11 car, we just weren’t fast,” Hamlin explained. “I couldn’t run a fast lap in practice. I couldn’t run a fast lap in qualifying. I certainly struggled on restarts, which is supposed to be your fast laps. So I don’t know, it’s just very frustrating for sure. I was losing my mind in there. I was really loose at one time.

“… So you know, I mean I thought that we had a good car in the long run, but we just — I don’t know, we just got off there somewhere. I didn’t do a very good job either, of executing. Over-driving corners left and right. Getting hung on seams left and right.”

Perhaps Martin Truex Jr. will share some pointers with Denny Hamlin next time he’s bad-fast during a race weekend. Nevertheless, both drivers are in fantastic shape at the moment, and figure to be players in the playoffs.