Martin Truex Jr. faced a penalty at Bristol Motor Speedway due to speeding. As Truex’s playoff aspirations hang in the balance, industry insider Jeff Gluck has weighed in on the uncharacteristic error that resulted in such a setback.
During the Playoff race at Bristol, Truex was handed a penalty for speeding on pit road by a mere 0.09 miles per hour. This seemingly minor violation, however, had massive repercussions, dramatically altering Truex’s standing and his chances of advancing in the NASCAR playoffs. Speaking on The Teardown podcast, Gluck from The Athletic commented:
“It was barely speeding but barely is all it takes. Unfortunately, this is a guy who is a veteran guy who you would think would not be making mistakes like this.
“The Darlington mistake early in the race in the opening laps, he makes that mistake. …Let’s say this had been a rookie that did those kind of things. You’d be like, ‘Well, he’ll learn and he’ll get better and veteran guy won’t make those mistakes in key moments.’
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“These were sort of key things that add up. …It’s just enough mistakes, enough small factors whether it’s his mistake, the team, whatever. Suddenly, you have a moment like (Saturday night) where it looked like he was gonna have at least a shot to get in or at least give himself a chance late in the race to be close to the cut line. Instead, he speeds, finishes 24th, misses it on points.”
Truex Jr commented on the incident following the race, stating to the media:
“It’s really tough you know. Point zero nine miles per hour that you know kind of screws your whole chance at a good season up. So yeah. Just I don’t know how that happened. I didn’t know I was even that close.
“Honestly, I felt like I did the same thing as every other stop. But sometimes you’re just a foot maybe a foot to the left or it’s so tricky when you’re going from that curved section to the straight to get your lights. And it’s on me. Obviously, it’s my mistake.
“Yeah I mean they said we were gonna have to run second or third there to have a chance and I don’t know if we could have done it but it would have been nice to see. And just really sad for my guys they worked so hard. We had a really strong car tonight and we did, you know, we got a lot of stage points we did what we needed there. Just hate I screwed it up.”
