Martin Truex had a messy day at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The day started with ground to make up. Joe Gibbs Racing had a difficult qualifying session, with Denny Hamlin nearly two seconds off the pace and last because of a plug wiring issue in his engine. Though Truex had qualified 22nd himself, the team opted for a careful approach, making adjustments to the plug wires for Truex and teammate Ty Gibbs as well. An unapproved adjustment post-qualifying, that change sent Truex and Gibbs to the rear alongside Hamlin.
Truex responded in a big way, making up nearly twenty positions in the first 60-lap stage as he marched back to the front. However, in the pit cycle following the stage break, Truex was hit with a speeding penalty that sent him back to the rear.
That forced the No. 19 team to reset and Truex began his march to the front once again, ultimately clawing his way into the top ten by lap 102 of 260.
But it wouldn’t last. Finally contending for the lead, Truex’s luck finally ran out after just over a hundred more laps when he was involved in an incident on lap 206 of 260. Chris Buescher got loose on the bottom and overcorrected, sending him shooting up to the outside and into Ryan Blaney. As Blaney turned sideways, Truex, who was running just behind, ran into the back of him and suffered heavy damage.
The wreck necessitated lengthy repairs on pit road which weren’t even enough to bring the No. 19 back up to speed, with the team reporting that the damage was more than they’d thought when they saw the wreck.
Truex ultimately finished 35th, twelve laps down.
It’s a poor start in the first race of the Playoffs for Truex, and it doesn’t bode well for a repeat of last season. In 2023, Truex won the regular season championship with three wins leading up to the postseason. But, when the Playoffs began, the team had a much worse postseason run, with just two top-ten runs and a second-round exit.
This season, his last as a full-time Cup Series driver, Truex is yet to score a win at all, in the regular season or the postseason. But if he wants to make a deeper run in the Playoffs than last year or even contend for a second championship in his last opportunity, the 19 team needs to turn their late-season luck around.
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