Truex, togetherness and Talladega: Sunday’s playoff race may hinge on team effort

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Martin Truex Jr. is still looking for the first Talladega Superspeedway victory of his career, and snagging one Sunday at a pivotal point in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs would be well-timed. The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran is also looking to right the ship in this star-crossed postseason -- his four races so far have yet to produce a top-10 finish or a lap led. Sunday's YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) presents an opportunity for the Regular Season Champion and the rest of the 12 postseason hopefuls to advance to the next round. The event is the middle race in the Round of 12, and four drivers will be ousted from championship eligibility after Sunday's 500-miler and next Sunday's event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course. Only William Byron -- who entered the postseason tied with Truex atop the standings -- has immunity, thanks to last weekend's win in the round opener at Texas Motor Speedway. RELATED: Sunday's starting lineup | Weekend schedule Truex holds a 19-point edge over the provisional elimination line after Texas. The wild-card nature of racing at the 2.66-mile Talladega track could treat the playoff standings like a properly shaken drink, but the style of high-speed racing in the draft will also place an emphasis on teamwork along manufacturer lines. Truex is one of just six Toyota drivers in the 38-car field, pitted against 17 Chevrolets and 15 Fords. After Saturday's Cup Series qualifying, he suggested strength might not necessarily be in the numbers. "All the drivers, we all work together really well and look back on past races and things, so I feel like we have a good group of guys," said Truex, who starts 16th Sunday. "You know, we're definitely outnumbered Toyota-wise, and this racing has become manufacturer racing, but at certain times, it works well for us because we're so committed. We're all basically on the same team, where other guys are ... they might be a Chevrolet, but they might be with different teams or have a beef or something, and when it comes down to the end, they leave each other hanging. So if we can all make it to the end and be together, we'll have a really good shot at one of us winning." Five of the six Toyota drivers are still playoff-eligible, a list that includes Truex and JGR teammates Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin, plus the two-car effort of 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace. All five will be fighting for their own playoff fates, but the value of teamwork, they say, still applies. "We all obviously need each other to do good, too," said Bell, who is just ahead of Truex in the playoff standings, 20 points up. "So while we are competing against each other, the betterment for the whole ... all of us are going to benefit from pushing each other and being committed to each other. So instead of bailing on each other and getting away from team racing, we will all benefit if we stay together." MORE: What to Watch: Talladega | At-track photos Chevrolet drivers have won the last three Talladega races, with Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch splitting the laurels. The most recent superspeedway race, though, was a Ford affair, with RFK Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski closing out a 1-2 finish in the regular-season finale at Daytona. That result, Buescher said, stemmed from a concentrated effort on working hand-in-hand on the circuit's largest ovals. "This has been something that we recognized we didn't do very well together last season and realized we had fast race cars, one or the other, and didn't do a good enough job at finding each other and making a show out of that," Buescher said. "We've worked very hard this year together. We put a lot of emphasis and a lot of studying into these events to make sure that when we are in a situation like we were in Daytona there at the end, we're ready for it, that we've thought about that. And that hasn't changed. We can't say, 'Oh, we had it figured out there, we're done. We don't need to think about again. We'll remember.' "It's the same diving into it, looking at what happened there, looking at this race from the last time we were in Talladega, playing out scenarios in our heads, talking it through with spotters, with crew chiefs, with our entire teams. There's a lot that goes into these things, obviously, our pit strategy and pit road is a massive part of how these races play out as well. So yeah, a lot of time and a lot of studying goes into this one, just like it did at Daytona, and we plan on it yielding the same results." For Truex to reverse some of his previous superspeedway results, he'll need that teamwork dynamic on his side. The playoff scenarios, he says, won't disrupt that strategy. "Not at all," Truex says. "I mean, our best chance is to all work together all day and hopefully be together at the end. That's our best chance to win."