AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Just when Martin Truex Jr. was basically ready to admit to himself that it's all about next season, he won the pole for this Sunday's Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

It was a reminder that he still has two Sprint Cup races left in the No. 1 Chevrolet he currently drives for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. His tenure at EGR comes to an end with the conclusion of the 2009 season next weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, as next season he's moving to a new ride with Michael Waltrip Racing.

"This is something new for me. I have never been in a position like this before in my career," said Truex, who will drive the No. 56 Toyota for MWR beginning next season.

Truex said he is cautiously optimistic about having his third pole of the season carry over to a great finish at Phoenix. But he's been on the pole before this season -- at the season-opening Daytona 500 and again in the second Atlanta race -- without necessarily having that happen. He finished 11th at Daytona, but the 26th-place finish he struggled to at Atlanta after leading 68 laps was more indicative of how his season has gone.

"Yeah, I'm hopeful. I'm optimistic. But that's how you can sum up our season," Truex said. "We've had decent speed and good cars, but we don't have good finishes to go with it.

"We've had a lot of weird things happen. We've had a lot of bad luck. But at the end of the day we just haven't gotten the job done on race day. It isn't for a lack of effort or a lack of speed. We just have made tons of mistakes and have had lots of things go wrong."

He used last Sunday's race at Texas as an example. Although he fought an ill-handling race car all day to manage a respectable 14th-place finish, the car was found to be too low in post-race inspection. That led to a penalty of 50 points both for Truex and car co-owner Teresa Earnhardt in drivers' and owners' points, respectively, as well as a $50,000 fine for crew chief Kevin Manion.

"Last weekend I felt good going into the race," Truex said. "Then the right-front jacking screw backed out during the race. It ended up not only making the car drive terrible the whole night and we couldn't ever get a handle on the car, but it led to another penalty this week because we were low at the end of the race."

The penalty dropped Truex from 24th to 26th in drivers' points. Two years ago, he made the Chase for the Sprint Cup and finished 11th; last year he was 15th.

"It's things like that that have constantly happened to us all year and taken finishes away," Truex said of the Texas penalty. "I think we've had like four top-10 finishes this year and that's no way indicative of how we've run on the race track. It's just the way the year has gone. It's been one of those years where we can't seem to do anything right."

He does indeed enter Sunday's race with more DNFs (five) than top-10 finishes (four). And he has yet to post a top-five finish -- after posting a total of 10 top-fives and 31 top-10s in the previous two seasons, which also included the only win of his career at Dover in 2007.

Truex said he hopes to turn his career around at MWR, where Pat Tryson will become his new crew chief. Tryson is finishing up this year as Kurt Busch's crew chief.

But while he looks optimistically toward his future, Truex admitted he would like nothing better than to finish up strong with Manion and EGR. He said he and Manion -- more affectionately known to Truex and others in the garage as "Bono" -- have developed a close friendship that will remain intact even as they both move on to new challenges.

"I think our relationship will never change. We've been together since 2003 and he's been there every step of the way for all of our success. He's been the guy steering that," Truex said of Manion. "So I have a ton of respect for him and am so thankful for him and for all he's ever done for me. I don't think that'll change.

"I think both of us are kind of on the same page as far as that it was time to do something different. I think as hard as it was on both of us, it was probably the best thing. I think Bono is a great crew chief and I think his best years are ahead of him. It just seemed like we just weren't getting it done like we used to. And so in that way change is a good thing."

Truex admitted that he is trying to pull off a balancing act between concentrating on finishing this season strong with Manion and looking ahead to what next season might hold with Tryson.

"Obviously I've still been focusing a lot of my efforts on this year and what we've been doing. But there are a lot of things happening with our team for next year that I'm excited about," Truex said. "Pat is getting some guys pulled together and kind of molding the group that we're going to have on our team next year. They continue to move forward as a team and I'm excited to be part of that next year."

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