Martin, who drives a part-time Sprint Cup schedule for Michael Waltrip Racing, will drive only at Martinsville on April 7 in JGR’s No. 11 Sprint Cup Toyota. Hamlin is expected to need six weeks to recover from the injury, suffered in a last-lap crash last weekend at Auto Club Speedway.

Brian Vickers, who drives a full-time Nationwide Series schedule for JGR, will assume Hamlin’s schedule starting April 13 at Texas Motor Speedway. Hamlin is likely to return for the May 11 race at Darlington but could be back a week earlier at Talladega.

“Obviously having to find someone to fill in for Denny is not an ideal situation to have to be in, and when you start a process like this you obviously begin to look at the drivers that are not only available but also able to drive for your race team and manufacturer. We were a bit premature in determining Mark’s status past Martinsville, however,” JGR president J.D. Gibbs said in a statement. “We’re real happy to have the opportunity to get Brian in our Cup cars and with him driving Nationwide for us we think we have some continuity there that is beneficial.

“We really appreciate everyone at Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota for working with us through this process. The good thing for us is that we have drivers the caliber of Mark and Brian to help fill in until Denny comes back.”

Martin and Vickers split driving duties for the No. 55 Toyota Sprint Cup car.

JGR had released a statement Thursday saying Martin was “to drive the No. 11 FedEx Toyota until Hamlin returns.”

“Obviously, we’re not exactly sure how long that is going to take, but Mark’s career speaks for itself and our team knows it will have the opportunity to compete for a win every week,” Gibbs said in the release.

Soon after the release went out, sources said, JGR officials were contacted by MWR officials to say Martin would be in the No. 11 at Martinsville and then return to the No. 55 at Texas to resume his part-time MWR schedule. Martin was not scheduled to drive the No. 55 at Martinsville.

Michael Waltrip told ESPN.com that his team was trying to help its Toyota partner by offering Martin for Martinsville.

“We said that we wanted to help, and by helping we would offer up Mark for Martinsville because Brian was racing there [in the No. 55],” Waltrip said. “I guess we just never had the whole deal done when the [JGR] press release went out.

“All we were doing was offering help. We agreed that Mark was driving at Martinsville, and we were working through what it looked like after that. Before we got it all figured out, a press release was put out. I guess it said Mark would drive it until Denny was better, and that was just not what we agreed to yet.”

MWR put out a release late Friday afternoon stating its plans.

“Mark is a big part of our organization and is committed to our sponsors, especially Aaron’s and Toyota,” Waltrip said in the release. “We have a lot of goals yet to reach this year and we are very focused on accomplishing them.”

Multiple sources said Aaron’s, the primary sponsor on the No. 55, preferred Martin in the car for his scheduled races because the company has activated sponsorship around the 54-year-old driver.

Vickers has recorded two top-10 finishes through the first five races of the Nationwide season. He has 264 career Sprint Cup starts over his 11-year career, posting two wins, 24 top-5 finishes and 63 top-10s.

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“In my opinion, it was just hard racing,” Earnhardt said during Tuesday’s national conference call. “The guy is leading the race, he’s trying to do what he can to win.”

Stewart didn’t agree.

The three-time Cup champion cut off Logano’s car on pit road after the race and went after him physically before being separated by crew members and officials. He then went on a verbal tirade against the 22-year-old Penske Racing driver.

“He has that right, he has the choice to do that,” Stewart said of blocking. “If he ever turns down across in front of me again, I don’t care what lap it is, he won’t make it through the other end of it.

“I’m tired of these guys doing that stuff. Especially out of a kid that’s been griping about everybody else and then he does that the next week. He sent Denny [Hamlin] to the hospital and screwed our day up.”

Stewart, who finished 22nd, was referring to a last-lap crash involving Logano and Hamlin racing for the lead. Hamlin, who wrecked Logano a week earlier at Bristol, suffered a compression fracture in his lower back when his car hit a concrete inside retaining wall and will miss up to five races.

Earnhardt understands there are some who get more upset about blocking than others. He’s just not one of them.

“Every driver is going to have a different opinion,” said Earnhardt, who took advantage of the last-lap crash to finish second and move into the points lead. “I might block in certain situations. I would expect and accept to be blocked in certain situations.

“But you’ve got to give me racetrack. You’ve got to give me somewhere to run. You can’t just run me up into the fence. You’ve got to give me a lane. If you give me a reasonable amount of racetrack to race on, then I really can’t complain in regards to what you’re trying to do to maintain the position.”

Earnhardt said the time of the race also is a factor when it comes to blocking.

“Is it time to be blocking?” he said. “Is the position that important at that moment in time? Again, everybody will have a different opinion. But when somebody blocks me, I’m not blown away by the notion.

“You know, I’m not going to say that I’ve never blocked anybody because I have, and you do, you will. Being in certain situations, that’s your only alternative. But you’ve got to give people racing room or expect to get turned around or expect to make a few people upset.”

Stewart caused a 25-car pileup in which Earnhardt suffered a concussion that sidelined him for two Chase races defending the lead in the closing lap at Talladega last fall.

Stewart, who has been outspoken about blocking several times the past few years, apologized after the race.

“I just screwed up,” he said. “I turned down and cut across Michael [Waltrip] and crashed the whole field. It was my fault, blocking and trying to stay where I was at.”

Logano never got a chance to discuss what happened with Stewart. He said after the race he had to slow down so as not to jump the race leader on the restart, and that when he did Stewart was able to get a jump on him.

“I had to throw the block there,” Logano said. “That was the race for the lead. I felt if [Stewart] got underneath me, that was going to be the end of my opportunity to win the race.”

Logano said he planned to tell Stewart the same thing when they spoke. Asked if he was willing to talk to Logano, Stewart said, “Hell no.”

“After he threw the water bottle at me like a little girl, we’ll go at it now,” he said.

Stewart also referred to Logano as a spoiled rich kid who never worked a day in his life. That brought up another issue that Earnhardt discussed in relation to how his 12-year-old niece Karsyn has many of the same financial advantages Logano had as she pursues a career in racing.

“Hopefully, she’s talented enough, no matter what your background or what your path is to where you are … if you have talent, you belong, and you earn respect through that talent,” he said. “If you’re really good at your job and really good at what you do, it won’t matter how you got there.”

Opinions will vary on that just as they will on blocking. Stewart’s teammate, Ryan Newman, called blocking a “chicken way to drive.”

“It’s just something I don’t do,” he said. “If you’ve got a run on me, take it. If I can get through the corner better than you, then we’ll race, but blocking is an IndyCar form or F1 form or an open-wheel type move it seems like.

“It’s not to say they don’t do it in NASCAR; obviously they do. But to me, it’s just a chicken way of driving and not very respectful for the guys around you. You’re there to race. You’re not there to block.”

Newman didn’t know if Stewart and Logano had talked or planned to before Sunday’s race at Martinsville, but he said you have to be aware if they’re around each other on the half-mile track where contact is expected.

“You have to know what’s going on and watch out for the dramas, but at the same time I have a race of my own to run, and a part of that is watching out for what’s going on, whether it’s something that’s carried over from the past few weeks or something that has happened that day,” Newman said. “Going to have to keep tabs on who turns who or who’s angry or where’s everybody at on their scorecards as you go through a race like Martinsville sometimes.”

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“What I know is when the racing is tighter and there’s more passing, there’s just more excitement and more contact and more things that happen,” France told ESPN.com Tuesday as the Sprint Cup Series heads into its first off weekend. “That’s kind of what NASCAR is all about.

“Kind of what happened on Sunday was a prototype event for how we would look what a good event ought to look like.”

Hamlin suffered a compression fracture to a vertebra in his lower back when he crashed hard into a concrete barrier while battling former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Joey Logano for the lead on the last lap. He is expected to miss six weeks.

It was the second time in two weeks the drivers were involved in an on-track incident. Hamlin spun Logano out while Logano raced Jeff Gordon for the lead a week earlier at Bristol.

But France said he has no plans to talk to them about settling their feud.

“No, because what they did, notwithstanding that Denny got injured, what they did in the last 20 laps is exactly what we would have expected them to do,” France said. “This is a contact sport. It’s always been a contact sport, especially late in the race.

“They were going at it. It probably didn’t hurt the competitiveness that both drivers didn’t want the other one to win. They also did want to win themselves. That’s how NASCAR racing goes. We won’t be having any conversation with them.”

But Hamlin’s crash raised the question of why there weren’t SAFER barriers on the inside retaining wall where his car hit, and why tracks aren’t required to have SAFER barriers everywhere.

France said NASCAR is studying Hamlin’s crash carefully, and that if experts recommend SAFER barriers are needed where it occurred, the governing body will make that recommendation to the track.

But France said the solution is not as simple as putting barriers everywhere.

“The reason, there’s not a one-solution-fits-all-problem with the wall,” he said. “Some walls, it might sling the car back into the racing groove at the wrong time. They’ll never put SAFER barriers up everywhere because that’s not the best approach.

“If the current approach can be improved, we’re certainly going to do that. We’re looking at the accident that Denny had very carefully.”

France has been busier than usual to start the season. He met with reigning champion Brad Keselowski in late February to discuss questionable comments the Penske Racing driver made in a newspaper article.

Then came a suspension of Nationwide Series driver Jeremy Clements for using a racial slur in front of an MTV reporter, followed by a $25,000 fine to Hamlin for criticizing the new Gen-6 car and the quality of racing at Phoenix.

France acknowledged it was primarily his decision to penalize Hamlin, and he stood by that decision.

“There’s always going to be, when we make decisions that are not black and white per se, we’re always going to have people all over the organization that may not have made that call,” France said. “But I did. I’m crystal clear with everybody about where the line is, what we can accept, and about how the sport is going today.

“And that is we give more latitude than any professional sport to criticize, speak their mind and say whatever they want. We encourage it, actually, including criticism that gets directed at us. But when the driver . . . begins to call out the quality of the racing or the rules packages, we have to make that call or opinions will shape what may not be reality.”

France met with Hamlin, who dropped his right to appeal the fine, and believes they are on the same page now.

France also believes the quality of racing is better than ever with the new car. He didn’t rule out tweaks in the future or a change in the package for restrictor-plate racing at Daytona and Talladega, but overall he is pleased.

“It’s hard to argue with five different winners and all the manufacturers seem to have a fair opportunity and they’re all in the winner’s circle,” he said. “And there’s a lot more passing.

“But I think it’s too early to say we’ve got the perfect package. That’s always going to be a work in progress.”

There have been 147 green-flag passes for the lead in 2013, up from 122 after five races a year ago and down from 203 in 2011 and 298 in 2010.

France also noted that television ratings in general are up, another sign the sport is headed in the right direction.

“We have some momentum,” he said. “Some really good things have happened to us. We all know ratings are still driven by storylines and matchups in a given weekend. You saw that last weekend where basketball ratings were up because they had better matchups than they’ve had or Tiger Woods was on the leaderboard [in golf].

“We’ll just keep working on what we can do. If we have close, great racing like we have, then the ratings will take care of themselves. For all the things that could have gone wrong with the new car and a new season, a lot of good things went really well and we’re pleased with that.”

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The first mistake was bumping Logano too hard on Lap 349 in retaliation for the way the Penske Racing driver raced him earlier. The bump sent Logano into a spin when he was battling Jeff Gordon for the lead and ruined any chance he had of contending for the victory.

The second was for attacking Logano personally after a postrace shoving match between the crews that began when Logano approached Hamlin at his car.

“He said he was coming for me,” Hamlin said after the incident. “I usually don’t see him, so it’s not a factor.”

On the first mistake, Hamlin said he was trying to send Logano a message with a tap after Logano pinched down on him too hard earlier.

“I felt bad, and really if you could watch my in-car camera, you could see how frustrated I was to see he had damage to his car,” Hamlin said before the first practice at Auto Club Speedway. “I banged the steering wheel because I was, ‘Man, I didn’t mean to do that.'”

Hamlin said that gave the impression he was trying to “bully” Logano, which he was not.

“I wish the cameras would see what happened before the contact you saw on TV,” he said. “That frustrates me the most. I’m not trying to bully Joey around because of performance.”

Then came what Hamlin called “the big mistake.”

“At the end of the race I shouldn’t have degraded him as a driver,” he said. “It’s not my job to say who’s good or bad in our sport. That part probably should have been left out.”

Hamlin and Logano haven’t communicated since a battle of words Sunday night on Twitter. Logano indicated the issue that began at the Daytona 500 with Hamlin criticizing his driving wasn’t over.

“I feel like I’ve told him everything I can tell him,” Logano told ESPN.com earlier in the week. “I’ve got nothing to say.”

Hamlin considers the issue over because they haven’t talked.

“He has my phone number, and I have his,” he said. “I assume when Bristol is over with it’s over with unless spoken to otherwise. I voiced to him he had my number. If he had a problem with anything that went on, then we could talk about it. I’m assuming by no contact it’s over at this point.”

Logano said he is still upset over what happened.

“Until anyone says anything to me personally, no, it’s not over,” said Logano.

Hamlin isn’t concerned that Logano will retaliate Sunday.

“I don’t believe so,” Hamlin said. “We both have the same goal in mind. The first thing is you need to win races. The second thing is you need to make the Chase. Messing with each other on the racetrack is a huge distraction for that. You cannot do your job a hundred percent the way you’re supposed to if you’re constantly worried about somebody else.

“My guess is going into this weekend and beyond he’s going to be worried about his program and I’m going to be worried about mine.”

Logano said winning races, not wrecking Hamlin, is his top priority.

“You remember things like that, obviously,” he said of what happened at Bristol. “You don’t go out there aiming for somebody. Obviously, I’m out there to win races and run for a championship.

“But at the same time, you don’t forget what happened. You don’t forget three years down the road what happened. It’s always there. That’s the case for everybody I would assume.”

Logano said he and Hamlin weren’t buddies away from the track during his four years in the No. 20 Cup car at JGR. Hamlin said nothing went on in their relationship that would lead to what has happened this season.

“I felt like [it was] an OK relationship off the racetrack as teammates,” Hamlin said. “On the racetrack, we didn’t go to him for as much information as they probably came to us. I think at times during our tenure as teammates he felt like I probably raced him too hard at times. There was times when I felt he raced me too hard as teammates.

“That went back and forth a little bit behind the scenes, but definitely not the displeasure for each other like we’ve seen the first few races this year.”

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NASCAR also will not penalize six drivers called to the hauler after the California race for entering pit road following the checkered flag when pit road was closed. Neither Stewart nor Logano was called to the hauler.

“A few years ago, we backed away from micromanaging a driver’s emotions,” Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said on Tuesday. “You would hope in today’s world that if somebody didn’t win a race they would be upset about it for whatever reason.

“That’s what our drivers do, they try to win races.”

Darby said there’s a limit to what NASCAR will allow, noting “if guys get in a helluva fight, yeah, we’re going to have to react.”

But Darby said what happened with Stewart and Logano did not put anybody in danger, as was the case in 2011 when Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick were docked $25,000 each for a pit road incident at Darlington.

In that incident, Harvick took a swing at Busch, who remained in his car. Busch then tried to pull away, pushing Harvick’s car into the inside retaining walls with safety workers and crew members in the area.

Darby said there was nothing in the Stewart-Logano incident that came close to that.

Stewart was upset that Logano blocked him on the final restart and that Denny Hamlin was injured in an ensuing wreck that occurred racing Logano for the lead.

After the race, Stewart cut off Logano’s car on pit road with his, approached the Penske Racing driver and then shoved him in the chest. A scuffle erupted between the drivers and team members. Stewart followed that with a verbal assault.

“Dumb little son-of-a-b—- runs us clear down to the infield,” Stewart said in a taped interview shown on Fox’s live broadcast after the race with the profanities bleeped out. “He wants to b—- about everybody else and he’s the one who drives like a little b—-. I’m going to bust his ass.”

Because the words were bleeped out, there was no violation. Darby said there was no foul in the entire incident.

“A couple of drivers at the end of the race arguing a little bit doesn’t create a foul in our world today,” he said. “The crews did a great job of managing their drivers to make sure it didn’t cross the line to where there was physical violence or anything like that. That’s what you’d hope for.

“That’s another example of the state of competition in NASCAR racing, the disappointment that comes sometimes when you don’t win a race. I don’t see any foul there at all.”

As for Hamlin, who suffered a compression fracture in the L1 vertebra of his lower back, it was determined late Tuesday that he won’t need surgery but will be sidelined at least six weeks.

Joe Gibbs Racing said in a statement that Dr. Jerry Petty of Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates will determine “when Hamlin will be able to return to racing this season.”
If he heals according to Petty’s estimated timeline, he’d only miss five races because NASCAR is off this weekend.

Darby said Hamlin’s car that ran into a concrete inside retaining wall will be studied by NASCAR. He said NASCAR and experts also will review where Hamlin’s car hit to determine if recommendations will be made for the track to install SAFER barriers there.

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Greg Biffle finished second and Brad Keselowski was third in the qualifying session, but they’ll start at the back after their Fords needed engine changes.

Although he ran early in a long qualifying session, Hamlin earned his first pole of the season and the 13th of his career. He won three last year, and has won the pole three times at Auto Club Speedway.

After his strong performance last year, Hamlin was confident his new Gen-6 race car would produce the same old results.

“These cars have different bodies on them, (but) they’re the same race cars we’ve been racing for a really long time, so everything pretty much correlated,” he said. “I love this racetrack. A lot of the reason is because it’s bumpy and it’s worn out. … You poll the drivers, this is one of the favorite racetracks we go to.”

Hamlin nicely shook off last week’s tumultuous performance in Bristol, where he exchanged contact with Joey Logano and eventually hit the wall in the closing laps, struggling to finish 23rd despite leading the most laps. Hamlin and Logano then had a confrontation after the race, with their teams briefly scuffling.

Biffle was right behind at 187.217 mph in his Roush Fenway Racing Ford. Keselowski was third, beating Kyle Busch’s 187.130 mph in fourth place.

But Biffle and Keselowski both had engine issues in practice, forcing them to start from the back. Given how well their cars performed with the new engines, neither driver seemed terribly concerned.

“That was a spectacular lap considering everything we did today,” Biffle said. “The guys worked really hard to get the engine changed. I got out with three minutes to go to make a lap, and we made adjustments from that lap and were able to put down a pretty fast lap. … We’re going to get a good pit stall for the race, and we’ll have to start at the back, so that’s unfortunate, but I’m proud of the car that we’re going to have for the race.”

Keselowski had his third top-10 time in five races this season, though he won’t get to enjoy it.

“I’m a little nervous about the engine issues the 16 and 2 cars both had in practice,” Keselowski said. “Hopefully those will subside for the race, and we’re both going to start in the back. … It’s unfortunate, but we will have a good time hopefully racing to the front.”

Defending champion Tony Stewart qualified eighth, and Mark Martin was ninth in front of Kurt Busch. Kasey Kahne, who won last week at Bristol, qualified 16th — right behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 15th and ahead of teammate Jimmie Johnson in 18th.

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General manager Steve Barkdoll told ESPN.com the 21-year-old younger brother of Cup driver Martin Truex, Jr. also will drive in the June 2 Cup race at Dover and the July 27 Nationwide Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Truex will be the fourth driver in the No. 51 Chevrolet that is a surprising eight in owner’s point when he gets to Richmond.

Regan Smith, who is scheduled for eight to 10 races while driving a fulltime Nationwide schedule for JR Motorsports, was seventh in the Daytona 500. AJ Allmendinger, who will be in the car this weekend at Auto Club Speedway in California, was 11th at Phoenix and 13th this past week at Bristol.

Austin Dillon was 21st at Las Vegas.

Allmendinger was scheduled to drive for James Finch’s single-car team based out of Spartanburg, S.C., on April 7 at Martinsville and May 26 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. But because of his IndyCar schedule for Penske Racing, he will be replaced in those events by Smith.

Barkdoll said the decision to put Truex in the car at Richmond and Dover was made “because he’s got talent and we’re trying different things.”

“This year is kind of open to a lot of things,” said Barkdoll, noting the 51 is unsponsored for Sunday’s race. “We think Ryan has some talent. He’s done some testing for some other teams and has done well.”

Truex ran the Truck Series opener at Daytona for owner Turner Scott Motorsports and hopes to run more races in that series. He started ninth but crashed and finished 28th. Truex won the K&N Pro Series East in 2009 and 2010, winning five of 21 races.

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