RELATED: Truex wins pole at Martinsville
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Less than a week after his championship hopes went up in a puff of smoke, Martin Truex Jr. sped his way to the pole here Friday at Martinsville Speedway.
It wasn’t redemption. But outrunning all those still harboring Chase dreams felt good just the same.
His shot at a title was extinguished in Talladega; at Martinsville he said his team feels as if it still has something to prove.
“I think the vibe is everybody kind of has a little chip on their shoulder and I think everybody wants to make sure that they show the other teams in the garage that we were for real and we just want to show them that we think we should still be going,” Truex said. “But things happen and that’s the way things go. It’s racing.”
RELATED: Blown engine eliminates Truex at Talladega
With a pair of regular-season victories and two more in the opening Round of 16 of Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, few doubted the strength of the Furniture Row Racing team. It would be foolhardy work to seek out disbelievers in the close confines of the Sprint Cup garage.
“Let’s be honest,” Joey Logano, second-fastest in the final round of qualifying and driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, said. “Some of the fastest cars in the series got knocked out last week, and it proves that with Truex getting the pole today, so obviously they have a fast race car.”
Four races remain, including Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 (1 p.m., NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Truex had that in mind at Talladega, almost as soon as he had pulled his disabled No. 78 Toyota into the garage after barely 40 laps of competition.
Behind the bitter disappointment, the will to win remained. The 2016 season won’t be defined by the frustration of Talladega. Truex won’t allow it.
“I literally pulled in there, got out and we all got together and said, ‘Let’s go win Martinsville; what do we have to do to win Martinsville?’ ” he said.
“I think our attitude just instantly changed to, ‘OK, we’re out of it, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Let’s not focus on this or rip us apart or pull us down or hold us back. It’s not easy to do. …
“As bad as last week was and as bad as it hurt to get that ripped out from under us feeling, there’s nothing we could do about it. It was tough. You have to move on and you have to look forward and try to be better the next week.”
Winning the pole, his fifth of the season, was a good start. Truex said he was proud of the effort and he has reason to be. They’ve kept the faith, he said, “and there is no quit in this team … it showed today.”
RELATED: Furniture Row heeds call of the West
The engine issue at Talladega may have been the final Chase straw; it wasn’t the only one however. Finishes outside the top 10 at Charlotte and Kansas left the team sixth in the 12-team Chase field and on perilous footing. Minor setbacks, it turns out, had major implications.
Inconsistency is a common thread in NASCAR — it’s difficult to be fast and fortunate through the long grind of a 36-race season. Truex and his team battled that as much as anyone. Such issues are magnified under the elimination-style format of the Chase.
“Going forward, that will be something we focus on,” he said. “We want to go out and we want to win races, that’s just what we want to do and I think this is a golden opportunity for us to do that because the way this season has gone, the cars we’ve had, the job everybody has done, the communication we’ve had, the confidence we have – it’s just that we have everything going for us right now … you always want to take advantage of that in this sport and you never know when it’s going to change.”
For now, it’s Martinsville and the grandfather clock awarded to the race winner. It’s another piece of hardware Truex would like to add to his growing collection.
The Sprint Cup trophy will go to someone else this time around. There’s no changing that fact, and while Truex has come to terms with the situation, the disappointment of Talladega won’t be forgotten.
“I thought about it every day and every night,” he said, “and I just kept telling myself to just go win Martinsville and I would feel a little bit better.”
Winning the pole was the first step, but just a step.
“Honestly, I’ve just enjoyed this year and even if it doesn’t turn out the way we wanted it to,” he said, “I’ve enjoyed it with the team I have. This is something we’re going to build on for years to come and contend for more championships.”
