By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Martin Truex Jr. closed the gap on leader Brad Keselowski, but the win wasn’t in his hands.
In the debut race for the 2019 aero package, Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway saw an up-and-down day occur for the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. It all ended with a fight to the checkered flag, where Truex came home second behind Keselowski by 0.218 seconds, the closest finish at Atlanta since 2005.
“We battled a lot of adversity today,” Truex said. “We had slow pit stops early, they got it together. We really had a lot of trouble with lapped traffic, I just kept catching them at the wrong spots.”
In the closing laps, frustration began to rise for the 2017 champion, who got slowed by both lapped cars and dirty air in his quest for his first Atlanta win.
“At the end, again, just lapped cars disrespecting us racing for the win,” he said. “If the guy in front of you is using the same line as you, if you even get near him, you’re done. You can’t go anywhere, you lose all grip.”
The race had false expectations, said Truex.
“Guys would put down one fast lap in practice and everyone goes, ‘Oh, this is a game-changer, the whole field is close,'” he said. “Well, that’s because those guys were trimmed out to get speed and today they go lapped.”
Truex believes next week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be a whole new animal for the cars, with Atlanta presenting a uniquely abrassive surface.
“California will be a lot like today was but Las Vegas is completely different,” he said. “It’ll be a lot tighter pack [at Vegas], more competitive cars. This place is so tough. If you don’t handle, you’re done. We saw that today. The field got spread out because guys can’t
Despite his frustration following 500 miles, Truex had a blast Sunday at one of his favorite circuits.
“I love this track,” he said. “It’s a driver’s track, really hard, difficult. You have to drive the heck out of your car. The car slides a lot, doesn’t handle very good after two or three laps on tires. It’s a handful but it’s a lot of fun.”
