NASCAR: Truex, Keselowski spar at The Glen

Denny Hamlin pulled away on the final lap of Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen leaving Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski to fight it out for second.

It was a battle that ended with Keselowski spinning Truex around and out of a podium finish. Keselowski finished second while Truex fell to seventh. Truex voiced his displeasure during the cool-down lap by door-slamming Keselowski on several occasions before parking it on pit road. But cooler heads prevailed as Keselowski quickly ran over to his fellow competitor and engaged in an exchange that went simply as follows:

Keselowski: "It was my fault."

Truex: "I know it was."

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Even though the conversation ended with relative mutual respect, Truex wishes he had the chance to race Hamlin to the line, something that was denied him by Keselowski.

"I felt like I maybe had (Hamlin) squared up a little bit and maybe could have drag-raced him to the line but it'd have been fun to see," Truex said. "But it was all not to be with getting hit in the left rear. It's unfortunate but hard racing at the end, with all of us going for a win and already locked into the Chase.

"I guess he [Keselowski] kind of races with that mentality that, 'Hey, it doesn't really matter where we finish or if we finish,' so I just have to be mindful of that when we're around him for the rest of the year."

For his part, Keselowski took full responsibility.

"It was obviously my fault when you run into the back of somebody," Keselowski said. "I saw the 11 was blocking low and thought the 78 would get in behind and rub up the 11 and I wanted to be outside to make a cross-over and see if I couldn't get both. At the last minute he came back up and I was already committed.

"I didn't think he would come back up. You make a commitment before you know what is going to happen and I made a commitment and it didn't work out. He got the bad end of it. I hit him from behind and that is my fault. Luckily with the way this Chase is, he probably won't want to hear it, but it doesn't hurt him too bad."