Martin Truex Jr.’s championship hopes ended with a fitting whimper Saturday night at Bristol.
Truex finished a lap down in 24th after a speeding penalty on pit road 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 great 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 a top-five position to the tail end of the lead lap and he simply couldn’t make any headway. Truex was soon passed by race winner Kyle Larson and had no chance to do anything on a restart as the final 163 laps of the 500-lap race went green.
“It’s really tough when you’re going 0.9 miles per hour and that ruins your whole chance of having a good season,” Truex said after the race. “I don’t know how that happened. I honestly don’t know how I got that close. I felt like I did the same thing I did at every stop. But sometimes you’re… maybe I was a foot to the left… Obviously it’s my fault, it’s my mistake.”
Truex, 44, announced midseason that 2024 would be his last full-time start at NASCAR’s top level. He entered the season hoping to win a title and instead has had a miserable season.
Saturday night’s race was Truex’s eighth consecutive finish of 20th or worse. He hasn’t finished in the top 10 since finishing eighth at Pocono in July and hasn’t finished in the top five since finishing fourth at Kansas in May. Given the nature of Saturday night’s race, Truex could have easily finished in the top five had he not sped up on pit road.
“You never like to let anybody down, no matter what the situation is,” Truex said. “So I regret doing that tonight.”
Truex and his Joe Gibbs Racing team have had speed. He has qualified in the top five in three of his last four races. Mistakes and bad luck have plagued the team. Truex was involved in accidents at both Atlanta and Watkins Glen to open the playoffs and crashed in the regular-season finale on the second lap when he lost control of his car under Ryan Blaney and slammed into Blaney and the wall.
The 2017 Cup Series champion was one of two winless drivers to make the playoffs in 2024 and is seeking his first win since New Hampshire a season ago. After winning three times in the regular season in 2023, Truex was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs thanks to a crash on Lap 3 of the second postseason race and a best finish of 18th in the other two races of the opening round.
He’s now in the same position as last year, with nothing to win but the checkered flag in the final seven races of the season. Truex was unsuccessful in 2023. Can he break the terrible trend and get one more win before retiring?
(tags to translate)Martin Truex Jr.