By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Martin Truex Jr. will have to wait until October to try and score his first victory at Martinsville Speedway.
Truex started the day eighth position but was unable to find the handle of his Toyota Camry successfully.
“It was tough,” he said. “We started eighth and finished eighth. It sounds pretty simple. A lot of stuff we worked on in between. Just really could never get the handle all day long. Too loose off the corner. I couldn’t get forward drive.
“No matter what we did it seemed like we couldn’t get it. We struggled a little bit. I thought we were going to be better than that today. Good job by the guys. A nice consistent day. We just didn’t have anything special.”
With a new setup and a new aerodynamic package, Truex believes they ultimately missed the mark.
“This track is pretty temperamental,” he said. “It’s pretty sensitive. We just missed it a little bit. We were really good yesterday in practice. Martinsville is a weird place. You can be the best car in practice and finish 20th in the race. We were too good yesterday, I guess. Just fought one thing all day, a terminal problem, and really couldn’t do anything to get it better.”
Truex sits seventh in the points standings going into Texas Motor Speedway next weekend.