Martin Truex Jr. had a bad day at Talladega but he remains optimistic about keeping his championship hopes alive.
The defending Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion suffered through a day of challenges in Sunday’s 1000bulbs.com 500 at Talladega adding up to a 23rd place finish. It dropped him down in the Playoff standings but he is still above the cutline heading into the last race of the second round next week at Kansas Speedway.
Truex Jr. has no idea what was plaguing his car on Sunday to be more competitive but says it really won’t make an impact going forward.
“It didn’t really matter what we did to the car,” Truex Jr. explained. “It didn’t go away. We tried a lot of stuff. It was tough to drive. It couldn’t even go straight. I could run hard for two or three laps. As soon as the tires got some air pressure, I was just hanging on. The longer the runs were, the worse it got. There was no chance of me just getting up there and racing. I wanted to.
“Luckily, we were able to get some tires there in the end. I could go for about three laps. I felt good going to the green-white checkered. They wrecked in front of us and we barely made it through. As soon as we got through there, I was able to salvage something.”
Talladega Race Recap and Results
So all of a sudden one of the “Big 3” has been put into a bit of a dicey position. Truex Jr. is in the final transfer spot on the Playoff grid by 18 points heading to Kansas and next Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400. However he’s not hitting the panic button.
“Yeah. I think that’s a good place for us even if we had to win,” he said of Kansas. “I am not saying we’re going to go there and win. But anytime we can go to any of those tracks, I feel like we have a shot. It’s racing. A lot can happen as we saw today. We’ll give it everything we got and bring a great car to Kansas. We’ll try to get the checkered flag.”
