{"id":8316,"date":"2020-06-11T10:12:03","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T14:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonmotorsport.com\/?p=8316"},"modified":"2022-07-22T12:10:33","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T16:10:33","slug":"truex-wins-at-martinsville-on-historic-day-for-nascar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2020\/06\/11\/truex-wins-at-martinsville-on-historic-day-for-nascar\/","title":{"rendered":"Truex wins at Martinsville on historic day for NASCAR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While 75% of the Joe Gibbs Racing stable finished off the lead lap,\u00a0<strong>Martin Truex Jr.<\/strong> recovered from a commitment line violation to take the checkered flag, Wednesday, at Martinsville Speedway.<\/p>\n<p>His 27th career Cup Series victory, however, took a back seat to news from the big NASCAR office in Daytona Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Martin Truex Jr. wins at Martinsville on historic day for NASCAR<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>A few hours before the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 went green, NASCAR took a step that I never thought it&#8217;d have the guts to do.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"zxx\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gJkIfVf3Ba\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/gJkIfVf3Ba<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NASCAR (@NASCAR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NASCAR\/status\/1270819350644211719?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 10, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Anyone who&#8217;s astute in all things NASCAR knows how Earth-shattering this is.<\/p>\n<p>Pull into a track in the South and it wouldn&#8217;t take you long to spot one or hundreds of Stars and Bars flying in the infield, mixed in with American flags and <strong>Dale Earnhardt<\/strong> flags. Some people flew a Confederate flag with an Earnhardt No. 3 emblazoned on it, without understanding the irony of it.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A few words from Dale Earnhardts Senior and Junior on the Confederate flag, from a book I could recommend: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WaUDWfXPdm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/WaUDWfXPdm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jay Busbee (@jaybusbee) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jaybusbee\/status\/1270829728748965893?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 10, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Some tracks, it was more prevalent than others. You&#8217;d be hard-pressed to not find one flying at Darlington Raceway, a track that once had a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/\" target=\"_self\">race weekend<\/a> called the Rebel 500 that fell on Confederate Memorial Day weekend in South Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, pull into the infield at Talladega Superspeedway, it wouldn&#8217;t take long to spot the Stars and Bars flying from the sea of motorhomes.<\/p>\n<p>While not as prevalent outside the South, it wasn&#8217;t uncommon to see the Confederate flag fly in the infields across the United States.<\/p>\n<p>It was ingrained in the culture of NASCAR, whether or not the big wigs in Daytona wanted it; and most of them didn&#8217;t, as former NASCAR Chairman and CEO, Brian France, discussed his distaste of the Confederate flag on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n<p>To NASCAR&#8217;s credit, it had long since banned the flag from usage in any official capacity; be it tracks, teams or NASCAR officials. There was never a Confederate flag flying on top of the haulers in the garage, and hadn&#8217;t been since the 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, the pressure &#8212; both <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonmotorsport.com\/2020\/06\/07\/white-zone-nascar-either-put-up-or-shut-up\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">externally<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/nascar.nbcsports.com\/2020\/06\/09\/bubba-wallace-on-confederate-flags-at-nascar-races-get-them-out-of-here\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">from within<\/a>\u00a0&#8212; grew too powerful to ignore, and NASCAR said no more.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8322\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8322\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8322\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonmotorsport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2020\/06\/gettyimages-74139354-594x594-1-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2020\/06\/gettyimages-74139354-594x594-1-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2020\/06\/gettyimages-74139354-594x594-1.jpg 594w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8322\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">DARLINGTON, SC &#8211; MAY 13: A view of a Confederate flag during the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Dodge Avenger 500 on May 13, 2007 at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the short term, this will probably alienate long-time core fans and cause a dip in NASCAR&#8217;s long-fledgling TV ratings.<\/p>\n<p>In the long-term, however, it was a much needed move to keep NASCAR palatable to an American culture that&#8217;s turned against the Confederate flag in the last few years, following the racially-motivated Charleston church shooting five years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not this translates to a resurgence in TV ratings for NASCAR remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, for a few hours, Wednesday, the league was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter. It was a historic day for NASCAR.<\/p>\n<p>Anecdotally, we can also point to New Orleans Saints &#8212; and former Tennessee Volunteers &#8212; running back, Alvin Kamara, as proof that this has opened new doors for NASCAR.<\/p>\n<p>He and others like him tuned in for the first time and watched Truex win back to back races at NASCAR&#8217;s last charter track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While 75% of the Joe Gibbs Racing stable finished off the lead lap,\u00a0Martin Truex Jr. recovered from a commitment line violation to take the checkered flag, Wednesday, at Martinsville Speedway. His 27th career Cup Series victory, however, took a back seat to news from the big NASCAR office in Daytona Beach, Florida. Martin Truex Jr. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3353,"featured_media":8321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1664],"tags":[1410,1411,159,859,14,1269,371],"class_list":["post-8316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-nascar-cup-series","tag-blue-emu-maximum-pain-relief-500","tag-confederate-flag","tag-martin-truex-jr","tag-martinsville-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-2020","tag-nascar-cup-series"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}