By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
After an abysmal week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. and the No. 78 team were able to find their mojo once more.
Throughout the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the veteran driver was able to stay at the front of the field for the entire race.
Truex won the first stage and finished third in the second stage.
Truex knew that his car had the long-run speed instead of the short-run speed. The veteran driver knew that if they had the lead, they would be fine on the short-run. However, the No. 78 team found themselves either second, third or fourth.
Truex believes the lack of short-run speed cost them the race.
“It took the race from us, no question. With 15 laps or so we could take the lead and drive away. We were actually a little too good on the long run, I wish maybe we could have gone the other direction a little bit and still been able to get the lead,” He said post-race.
“If we were the leader, we could do okay, I could maintain, but when I was second or third or fourth, it just made me tight enough that I had to wait for the thing to come to me or wait for other guys to start getting off the bottom in front of me.”
Despite not getting his fifth win of the season, Truex is proud of the effort his team put in at Las Vegas.
“All in all it was a great day for everybody on the Bass Pro/5-hour ENERGY Camry and all the guys did a phenomenal job this weekend. Thanks to all the guys back in Denver at the shop, it’s pretty cool to see the effort going into these last 10 – we’re going to get after them. We had a winning car, just didn’t work out for us today. Really proud of the effort,” he said.
With his third-place finish, Truex finds himself at the top of the Playoff standings, only 65 points about the cutoff line going into Richmond Raceway.