Marco Andretti Acquitted of Accusations of Trickery at COTA by Dale Earnhardt Jr

Published 03/27/2024, 1:00 AM EDT

Marco Andretti had an unusual moment in the NASCAR Truck Series race at the Circuit of the Americas last weekend. His rear-end housing literally broke off from his #4 truck in turn 11, which bewildered a lot of people. Such instances are rare and can only be seen in heavy wrecks, but Andretti was not involved in any such incident. So how did it happen? Did his team not tighten things up at the rear well, and if so, why? There were talks of some potential foul play, perhaps with Roper Racing intentionally keeping the rear a little loose for some sort of advantage, but motorsports veteran Dale Earnhardt Jr recently shot down those rumors.

Dale Earnhardt Jr explains exactly what happened with the #4 truck

The former Xfinity Series champion has a tremendous reservoir of knowledge when it comes to race cars, and that was on full display in the recent episode of Dirty Mo Media. At first glance, even Junior thought that there might be some foul play, but after having a conversation with NASCAR, his doubts were laid to rest. It turns out that it was nothing more than a freak accident caused by a track bar mount failure.

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“When I see this, 2 things come to mind. There’s either some trickery, so they’re doing something to the trailing arms or the rear, something back there to try to improve forward drive, or he will hop the c*** out of this car or truck. I called into NASCAR yesterday and talked to a few people and there seems to be from…at this point yesterday, there was no trickery. It looks all straight, everything’s bolted in there right, everything’s tight and apparently, there was a failure of the track bar mount first…something broke first. There were some people who saw the rear moving back and forth before it actually comes out of the truck and so who knows the chain of events that happened,” he said.

Obviously, the 37-year-old driver was disappointed, and it was not even his fault that his race ended prematurely. At the time, he was as dumbfounded as any of us and admitted that it was getting a bit frustrating.

Marco Andretti reveals his frustration

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Speaking after having been forced to retire from the COTA race, Andretti echoed Dale Earnhardt Jr’s sentiment that “something broke first” as he claimed feeling massive vibrations in his car which might have been the culprit. Building a race car is one of the most difficult tasks in the world and even the slightest miscalculation can have a massive impact on how the vehicle runs. Unfortunately for Andretti, his team just did not get it right in Austin.

“Just big vibrations through the brake pedal, throttle, and acceleration brake. Just huge vibrations. We were limping around. I didn’t have second gear. I would say I’m done with these character builders, I think my character’s built at this point. And we’re ready for a straightforward weekend because I haven’t been able to fight yet this season, and it’s getting a little frustrating. Yeah, it’s unfortunate,” the 37-year-old said.

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Suffering a DNF must be more frustrating for a part-time racer than a full-timer, as they only take part in a few races. However, the veteran race car driver will be hungry for a good result the next time he runs in the competition, whenever that may be.

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Written by:

Nilavro Ghosh is a NASCAR Writer at EssentiallySports, where he is known for his creative yet easy-to-read writing style. Before taking up his role as a sports journalist at ES, Nilavro has written for some of the top publishing houses, like The Telegraph. While most journalists stop at covering live events and taking the news to the readers, Nilavro goes the extra mile to give fans a platform for them to express their thoughts through his 'race reaction' pieces.

Edited by:

Shivali Nathta

Marco Andretti Acquitted of Accusations of Trickery at COTA by Dale Earnhardt Jr

Dale Earnhardt Jr explains exactly what happened with the #4 truck

Marco Andretti reveals his frustration

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