close
close
news

NASCAR: Martin Truex Jr.’s first-round playoff exit was disappointing and not surprising

Martin Truex Jr.’s hopes for a walk-off championship ended with a fitting conclusion Saturday night in Bristol.

Truex finished a lap down in 24th place after a pit road speeding penalty and was eliminated from the playoffs in the first round, along with Brad Keselowski, Ty Gibbs and Harrison Burton. Truex was running in the top five and had a good chance to sneak into the second round before his speeding penalty under caution after Corey LaJoie crashed on lap 330.

The penalty dropped Truex from the top five to the end of the lead lap and he simply couldn’t make any progress. Truex was quickly passed by race winner Kyle Larson and had no chance to make a difference on a restart as the final 163 laps of the 500-lap race went green.

“It’s really tough when you’re driving 0.9 mph, it ruins your chances of having a good season,” Truex said after the race. “I don’t know how that happened. I honestly don’t know how I was that close. I felt like I was doing the same thing I did every other stop. But sometimes you’re — maybe I was just a foot to the left … It’s obviously my fault, it’s my fault.”

Truex, 44, announced midseason that the 2024 campaign would be his final full-time run at NASCAR’s highest level. He entered the season hoping for a title, but it has been a miserable campaign instead.

Saturday night’s race was Truex’s eighth consecutive finish of 20th or worse. He hasn’t finished in the top 10 since he was eighth at Pocono in July and hasn’t finished in the top five since he was fourth at Kansas in May. Given the nature of Saturday night’s race, Truex easily could have finished in the top five had he not been driving too hard on pit road.

“You never let anybody down, no matter what the situation is,” Truex said. “So I feel bad that I did that tonight.”

Truex and his Joe Gibbs Racing team have had speed. He’s qualified in the top five in three of his last four races. Mistakes and terrible luck have simply plagued the team. Truex was involved in crashes at both Atlanta and Watkins Glen to open the playoffs, and crashed out of the regular-season finale on Lap 2 when he lost control of his car under Ryan Blaney and slammed into both Blaney and the wall.

The 2017 Cup Series champion was one of two winless drivers entering the 2024 playoffs and is seeking his first victory since New Hampshire a season ago. After a three-race regular-season win streak in 2023, Truex was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs thanks to a Lap 3 crash in the second race of the postseason and a career-best finish of 18th in the other two first-round races.

Now he finds himself in the same position as last year, with nothing to aim for but checkered flags in the final seven races of the season. Truex has been unsuccessful in 2023. Can he buck the terrible trend and take one more win before retirement?

Related Articles

Back to top button