Truex frustrated with Stenhouse after qualifying block

Martin Truex Jr. has shown he has one of the fastest cars at Watkins Glen, but he will start Sunday's race from 14th.

Truex was on a flyer when he encountered a slow car up through the esses, killing his lap. The car was driven by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and he had just exited the pit lane.

"He was just leaving pit road and he wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense why he would’ve done what he did except for the fact that he just wasn’t paying attention," an understandably annoyed Truex explained in his TV interview.

"It's a shame, we still almost made it to the second round. I don't know what you can do about it."

The Furniture Row Racing driver believes Stenhouse cost him half a second, and considering that he only missed the pole round by 0.021 hundredths, he would have easily advanced without the obstruction.

"When you get to this level, you should be able to tell what's going on around you and paying attention to the other cars, so I'm frustrated about that part of it, especially when he was just leaving the pits. It's not like he was on his lap.

"We've got spotters. He should have known there was a car coming. He should have seen me and just checked up and let me go around on the outside of him and not cost me."

Truex responded by using his actual cool down lap to ruin Stenhouse's in the same area of the track. They will start 14th and 30th, respectively.

Stenhouse explains

The Roush-Fenway Racing driver explained himself after the session, saying he had incorrect information regarding the No. 78.

“We didn’t have a clean lap. We got in the way of the 78 there on his lap thinking that he was done and then so he in turn returned the favor. Which I expected, it's nothing on him. We just did a bad job at qualifying there today. We were not able to get our stuff done as quick as we could.”

Later, Motorsport.com asked pole-sitter Carl Edwards to give his thoughts on the complaints of blocking during qualifying, which was not limited to the Truex/Stenhouse incident.

"It's easy here to mess someone up -- and even easier to act like you didn't mean to."