| | | | | | GETTING STRONGER | Truex continues Dover strength, finishes sixth-place | |
| | SceneDaily Staff Martin Truex Jr. needed a strong finish - and once more he found one at Dover International Speedway.
A year ago, Truex won this NASCAR Sprint Cup race at the track, sparking a rally for his Dale Earnhardt Inc. team. In Sunday's Best Buy 400, he turned in a gritty sixth-place performance to pull within 83 points of the 12th-place Kasey Kahne. The top 12 drivers will be locked into the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup after the season's 26th race.
Something about this 1-mile concrete track works for Truex, though things didn't go as well as he had thought they would Sunday. After running well in practices, Truex expected to be contending for more than the final position on the lead lap.
“We just don’t really know what happened to the car today, just can’t figure out what happened," he said. "In happy hour yesterday, we honestly thought we had one of the cars to beat, we were really, really good. At the start of the race, we were really loose all day until we finally moved the track bar on a pit stop and it came alive and we had something really going then, but didn’t have enough time.”
A few more caution periods might have helped him as well, but the race had just five cautions for 26 laps - and most of them came early. The final caution period ended on lap 247 of the 400, creating a lengthy final run with no real chance for teams to work on the car.
Still, Truex wasn't complaining about the outing. He and crew chief Kevin Manion needed a good finish to go with the quality runs they've been turning in all season. He avoided the misfortunes that have sometimes dogged his team and managed to get the finish to match how he performed throughout the race.
“We have run like this all year, top-10, we haven’t been up there leading laps, but we have been a sixth-, seventh-, eighth-place car, so this is what we need to keep doing," True said.
Then he offered a little insight into his key to avoiding any setbacks. Truex was the last car out of Turn 2 before a major 11-car pileup happened early in the race. What did he think was the key to that type of fortune?
“I wore my underwear inside out today because my Mom suggested I try it [to change our luck] and I think I might be doing it from here on out," Truex said.
| | Posted June 02, 2008 , 7:16 pm EST
Last Updated June 04, 2008 , 8:13 pm EST | | | | | | | | | | |
