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CONCORD, N.C. — After a tough run of races over the summer heading into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Martin Truex Jr. came into the postseason a bit under the radar.
Most don’t see us. We’re still here. #ambush #truexnation
— Martin Truex Jr. (@MartinTruex_Jr) October 13, 2015
The Furniture Row Racing driver’s stealth run toward a possible championship continued at Charlotte Motor Speedway on a day that saw Joey Logano dominate his way to victory and several title contenders find trouble. Truex scored a third-place finish in the Bank of America 500 that puts him third in the standings and 12 points above the cutline to be one of eight drivers to advance to the Eliminator Round.
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“Third is great and all, but it’s no guarantee,” Truex said after the race. “I felt like this round would be good for us. Charlotte and Kansas, we ran so good here in the first race this year, and then after practice I was like, ‘oh my God, we’re struggling.’ This was honestly the worst weekend we’ve had all season long as far as how I felt about the race car.
“So I was like, ok, kind of damage control. Let’s just hopefully get a top 10 out of this thing, and to do ‑‑ to get third out of it was a huge step for us.”
Truex qualified 15th for the Bank of America 500 and finished 16th, 4th and 15th in the three practice sessions.
”From the time practice was over on Friday until this morning, we were texting about the set-up and what we were going to do and what we had to do and what to focus on,” Truex said of his single-car team’s efforts to improve the No. 78 Chevrolet this weekend.
“ I’m just proud of those guys for what they did. It was a true team effort and a testament to this team and their fight.”
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The run was Truex’s best result since a third-place finish at Michigan in August and was his best career finish at Charlotte. The finish also gave Truex a career-high in top-fives for a single season (eight) and matched his career-high in top 10s (19).
And now the 35-year-old turns his attention to the next race of the Contender Round at Kansas. Truex led a race-high 95 laps in the spring race at Kansas, the SpongeBob SquarePants 400 , en route to a ninth-place finish. Prior to that, he had four top-four finishes in his past six starts at the 1.5-mile track.
”Honestly, I think going to Kansas, a win is huge,” Truex said. “It would be so huge. It’s so critical to try to get that win out of the way. Logano is the only one that’s going to sleep for the next two weeks. You know what I mean?
“Kansas has been one of my best race tracks, and certainly one of my best since I went to Furniture Row. Honestly, we’re going there as hard as we can go with everything we have to try to win just because we know Talladega is that wild card.”
Add in his 6.7 average finish in the seven intermediate track races that have used the 2015 rules package and its easy to see why Truex feels confident heading into Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM).
“Talladega still looms. It still makes us nervous,” Truex said. “But next week could be a really good race for us and we’re looking forward to getting that win that’s been eluding me at Kansas for a couple of years.”