Justin Allgaier was something of an invested party to the Sam Mayer and Jeb Burton incident on Saturday night at Martinsville.
Well before Mayer intentionally crashed Burton during the cool-down lap, or even before the series of instances of hard racing between the two, Allgaier was also caught up in it during the first stage.
Allgaier won the first stage but had to wrestle it away from Mayer and this led to the first issue with Burton, who came over the radio and said ‘he is done,’ given how they were all raced. It was the first of several times they tussled during the race.
After being crashed, Burton said he wanted to fight Mayer, but was talked off the ledge by team owner Jordan Anderson. Instead, Anderson walked down pit road to confront Mayer. When that was over, Allgaier took some time to confront his former teammate, and it was that previous relationship that was the basis of their conversation.
Allgaier shared what that message was on Thursday during NASCAR Championship Media Day at Phoenix Raceway.
“It started with me and then I had 60 laps to watch everything else that transpired,” Allgaier said. “And look, Sam and I have had a good relationship, right? I feel like, as drivers go away from JR Motorsports, I still feel responsible for the kind of drivers they grow into and I want to see them succeed.
“I hold the drivers who leave JR Motorsports to a higher standard than maybe someone else in the sport because I know what the expectations are in our shop and what they have been taught.”
To wit, Allgaier said ‘Sam didn’t do a good job’ and his actions resulted in a one race suspension that will sideline Mayer until the season opening weekend at Daytona next year.
“He has his own opinion of it, but I just hold him to a higher standard,” Allgaier said. “So yeah, I was upset and I was upset because it affected our night and put us in a really bad spot and tore our race car up that didn’t need to get torn up.
“So, I’m disappointed that it culminated to what it did and that he got suspended. I don’t want to see that. I don’t want any driver to have to go through that. I just feel like we all owe it to each other to hold each other accountable when guys aren’t doing things the right way and that was my conversation with him.”
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