WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- The Chase be darned. Martin Truex Jr. is here to race.

And that's why the star of the young man from the Jersey shore was among the brightest on pit road at Watkins Glen International on Sunday evening; and why Truex planned to be at a test session at Kentucky Speedway the very next day.

Truex had just notched a career-best finish on a road course, fifth in the Centurion Boats at The Glen. Never mind that he picked up two positions in the Sprint Cup standings, moving him into 15th.

“

We're not looking at points, we're just going out there and racing hard and we'll see where we end up when the racing's over with.

”

MARTIN TRUEX JR.

At that rate, Truex will only gain 156 points by the Chase cutoff event in September at Richmond International Raceway -- not enough to get him into his second consecutive Chase in the No. 1 Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolet.

While that's a great disappointment to Truex and his team, Sunday's run at The Glen was the latest step in their rebound from a horrendous six-race stretch in the spring that knocked them from eighth in the standings, back to 17th.

Only recently have they shown signs of recovering, and that rebound has a few notable aspects. Three races ago, crew chief "Bono" Manion and car chief Gary Putnam began serving six-race suspensions for a technical violation at Daytona.

Truex only recently re-signed a one-year contract extension with DEI (read more) and before The Glen he credited his team, including interim crew chief Mike Greci -- his former crew chief on Truex's family run Busch East team -- for stepping up.

"That's probably the biggest reason I'm here, because I've got that communication with [Truex] for all these years, now," Greci said. "Obviously, we miss Gary and Bono a whole bunch, but the last three races we've been getting better and better and we'll go to Michigan in good shape, I think."

For his part, Truex was still enjoying Watkins Glen.

"Man, it was smooth -- the first time in a real long time that we've had a really smooth race in a while, so hopefully that monkey's off our back," Truex said. "We're not looking at points, we're just going out there and racing hard and we'll see where we end up when the racing's over with."

When the race ended Sunday, on its final lap only two cars had better laps than Truex, race winner Kyle Busch and second place Tony Stewart. Road racers Marcos Ambrose and Juan Montoya occupied the next two spots.

"It's huge," Truex said of the finish. "After making the announcement [about signing a contract extension] this past week, and not having Bono for the last couple -- all the guys have just stepped up, taking over positions that they haven't done before.

"I've said this before, and it sounds so simple, but just having the car prepared on time and having it through tech on time -- we ran around [The Glen] all day, beating and banging on the curbs and nothing fell off it. It sounds simple, but it's a lot of stuff, and just overall, we had a really good weekend.

"I just appreciate all of the guys who have stepped up. Mike did an incredible job all weekend, of calling the race. We worked on the car throughout practice -- when we unloaded we weren't very good, but we threw some things at it, and it turned into a real good weekend."

On the race's final restart, with five laps to go, Truex actually jumped ahead of Montoya and into fourth in the first corner. But it didn't last.

"I did pass him back," Truex said with a laugh. "Restarts here are very tough and everybody's really vulnerable, because if the guy gets just a little bit of a run, he can dive-bomb you. Whether he's faster or not, it doesn't matter. So Montoya and Ambrose got into it a little bit [going into Turn 1], Montoya looked to the outside and I just followed Ambrose down the inside and that's how I got by [Montoya].

"I was really, really loose on that first lap after that long red flag and I got loose down there in the carousel [after the backstretch chicane], I got out of the groove and Montoya got back around me. I said to the guys that it was probably a blessing in disguise because he was just a little bit better than me at the end anyhow and he deserved to beat us."

Qualifying for the Chase for the Sprint Cup might not be a totally dead issue, but the fact is, despite picking up those two spots, Truex only gained 39 points on 12th. He came into Watkins Glen 248 points behind Clint Bowyer and heads to Michigan 209 behind Matt Kenseth.

With putting a road course in the Chase schedule a hot topic, Truex posted his vote for adding a couple more lefts and rights to the overall schedule.

"I do like road racing -- I enjoy it a lot and [Sunday] was really fun, especially because the car was so good. For a long time I was one of the fastest cars. I was out there racing with Ambrose and Montoya and mixing it up with 'em. We passed a lot of cars [Sunday]. I think Montoya and Ambrose were the only two cars that passed us all day, so it was a really good day for us."

Greci said he had an equal affinity as his driver for road courses.

"I've always liked road racing and I was probably more comfortable coming here than I was going with the [new car] coil-binding with the bump stops and stuff like that," Greci said. "We weren't real good when we unloaded, but we knew when we got done with [Saturday's] practice that we were gonna be pretty good.

"We just pitted at the right time, and the racecar was real good. If you noticed, you don't see a lot of passing here. We run better on the longer runs and that's why on the [last] restart we were slipping and sliding a little, but the more we run, the better we'd get."

"We've struggled some lately, so this couldn't have come at a better time for us," Truex said. "Mike and the guys gave me a great car [Sunday]. We really didn't have to make any changes to it all day. I had a lot of fun out there, the car was awesome and I'm really proud of my guys. Hopefully, we can carry this momentum to Michigan."

Also
• Truex happy to have DEI contract extension finished
• NSCRC upholds 1 team's penalties; Manion suspended