| | | | | | DIG DEEPER | Truex needs to make up ground anyway he can | |
| | SceneDaily Staff Martin Truex Jr. doesn't understimate the task he faces. He knows what it's going to take to break into the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup field - and he knows it isn't going to be easy.
Truex is 17th in the standings with 10 races to go before the Chase field is set. If he and his Dale Earnhardt Inc. team want to return to the championship-contending group, they'll need to make up the 107-point deficit on the 12th and final position. Clearly, that points gap isn't insurmountable. But it is a challenge, especially with so many top drivers between Truex and that slot.
To break into the Chase, he's going to have to forego conservative racing and try to make up ground wherever he can.
"We need to be aggressive," he said. "We need to get all we can. You know, we really dug ourselves a hole up until this point. Like I said earlier, we had a lot of good runs early part of the season you know that slipped away for whatever reason. We had a lot of bad luck. We made some mistakes. We had some problems with our cars as far as engine failures and things of that nature. So we really dug ourselves a pretty big hole that I don't feel like as a race team we should be in.
"We've got a great team, and I think we're more than capable of being in the Chase. But it's all about results, and we haven't got them. So we need to go out and get them now. We're running out of time. There's no time for excuses. We can't say what might have been or we should have done this, we should have done that. It's not going to get anything done. So guys are working really hard at the shop. [Crew chief Kevin Manion] and all the guys on my team have been doing a good job. We just need to put it all together and it's go time for us now."
That starts in this weekend's Lenox Industrial tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Truex runs well at the track and earned two top-five finishes there last season. A similar performance could spark a run at the Chase.
"I think if we can go to Loudon this weekend and have a really good run and get that momentum back on our side, that will help a lot," he said as he eyed the tracks coming up on the schedule. "Daytona is a little bit of a crap shoot, but, other than that, I feel like we've run well everywhere. So we just need to go out and get the results."
Truex says the ability to make the Chase is important to he and his team and that performance is a consideration in his contract talks. DEI wants to pick up his contract option for 2009, but the details of that appear to be murky. Truex says he is talking to DEI about the future. What he's looking for this season, and what he's looking for down the road, are the same things. In the end, it's all about performance.
And to make the Chase field, he says he's going to have to step that up starting now.
"We really just need to dig deep for now and try to get a win or two before the Chase starts," he said. "We really just need to get some points and try to make the Chase and battle for that championship like we did last year."
Truex admits that it's been a frustrating season for the team, one in which a variety of factors have hampered performances. He has two DNFs - one due to an accident and one due to an engine failure - and now looks back at those and other setbacks as points that are keeping him out of the Chase.
Still, he's trying to look at the positives and prepare for a final surge into the Chase. He knows his team has room for improvement, but he also believes they are worthy of Chase contention. They just need to step up in the season's summer segment.
"It's very frustrating for us," he said. "Especially when we sit and look at the things that have happened to us and the amount of points that we've just let go, you know, thrown away, lost out on. It's very frustrating to look at that. But at the same time to take how well we ran, that is something that you can look at and we can build on. It helps us with our confidence, definitely. If we run in the top-5 and we finish 43rd. We don't care if we finished 43; we ran in the top 5. That's what we have to look at. Without doing that you can't go to the next week and perform your best.
"We take the positives out of everything we can. At the same time we don't try to fool ourselves. If we need to get better, we know it. So we work hard and try to do that."
| | Posted June 25, 2008 , 7:00 pm EST
Last Updated June 26, 2008 , 6:53 pm EST | | | | | | | | | | |
