Besides the cars that wrecked out of the race, no one had a worse day at Texas Motor Speedway than Martin Truex Jr. and his team. The 19 was just not up to snuff. From the track to the pits and more – everything that could go wrong did. That’s just the NASCAR Playoffs for this group right now.
Many Truex fans were hoping to see things turn around. After all, the regular season champion barely made the Round of 12. Now it looks like he’s going to scrape by to the next round, at best. This team can’t afford a day like this, or worse, at Talladega a week from now, I’ll tell you that.
After the race, Martin Truex Jr. detailed to NBC’s Dustin Long what had gone wrong. In usual Truex fashion, he was frank and relatively succinct. He didn’t mince too many words describing the failures that his group had.
To his credit, the spin at the end of Stage 1 wasn’t his fault.
“Yeah, I mean so far nothing’s went right at all,” Truex said to Long. “Today we just didn’t really run good. I thought we were a top-10 car early and then once we got spun out there and had to drive around on the flat tires I think messed something up underneath. Definitely was way tighter after that and lost our track position and it just piles on when you get back there. On top of that our pit stops were absolutely horrendous. Just nothing really good today at all to speak of other than not getting wrecked. Long terrible day we need to fix it.”
The 19 team enters next week just 19 points above the cutline. They lost almost 20 points on the day from where they started. Worse yet, William Byron won the race and picked up more playoff points in the process. If Truex does make the next round, he won’t be tied with Byron anymore.
Martin Truex Jr. continues to struggle in the NASCAR Playoffs
When the postseason began, a lot of folks felt that Martin Truex Jr. was going to be a championship favorite. It helps that his points reset in this round. However, it won’t help much if he can’t earn stage points and finish races in the top-10. That’s what it takes.
If you want to be one of the Round of 8 drivers, you have to be a top-10 driver each week in the results. Or as close as you can get.
In the four playoff races, this is actually Truex’s best finish. It’s that dire for the 19 team, folks. His finishes so far this postseason have been P18, P36, P19, and now P17. Something has to give or it won’t be much longer until he’s out of the playoff picture.
Things get worse as we look at past years in the playoffs. Since 2017, Truex Jr. has only finished inside of the top-23 ONCE at the Talladega playoff race. His best finish was in 2021 when he was P12 on his way to a runner-up finish that season. In the last three seasons when it comes to the Roval, Truex Jr. has finished P7, P29, and P17.
Things are not looking great for Martin Truex Jr. and his team as they move forward in these playoffs.
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