Martin Truex Jr. has finished first or second in the final standings in each of the last three years now. He’s made the Championship 4 in four of the last five years in general. If he wants to continue this streak, a solid outing at the Texas Motor Speedway this weekend needs to ensue. 

Truex, finished ninth last Sunday at the Kansas Speedway and enters this weekend’s race -31 in the standings. No one wants to be facing a must win at the Martinsville (VA) Speedway next week, even with Truex winning there this past spring, so why not further your chances to get up to at the very least close to fourth in the standings leaving Sunday’s race in Texas?

Truex, now is not wanting to be facing a potential must win over the next two weeks. He dropped to 31 points below the cutline. It’s entirely possible to make that ground up, but to do so on the best of the best in the Round of 8, well it’s going to be tough.

He’s chasing Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Chase Elliott. Combined, that foursome has won 23 times this season. Truex, has only won once. All four of those drivers are capable of winning in each of the next two races. If they do, then Truex, has to make it in on points and those are four drivers that are going to be difficult to chase down.

Truex, has never won at Texas, the site of next Sunday’s race. He has won the las two times out on the Round of 8 finale at Martinsville though.

“We’ll do what we do,” Truex continued. “We’ll just keep fighting. Today is over. It’s wasn’t a terrible day by any means, but not what we needed to get to the final four.

“Try to pick it up for Texas next week and Martinsville should be good too.”

But, do they have the capability to turn this around?

“I know we can do it, “Truex said. Just a matter of hitting it really right. We’ve not hit it right in a while. We’re good enough to win at least and we’ve been close. We’ve been second, third and fourth a lot of times and today, ninth is unacceptable for us. That’s the way it goes and that’s racing. This stuff is hard. We’ll go back to work. I know we can win at one of the next two. We just have to hit it right.”

No one has won as many races in the last 75 of them on intermediate tracks than Truex Jr. But, for whatever reason, Truex has never won at Texas before. In fact, he’s not scored a top five in each of his last five Texas starts. 

He was 12th and sixth respectively last year and 29th this past July. 

But, I think that can change this weekend. Truex, has actually been really fast on 1.5-mile track this year in finishing 20th in Las Vegas 1, sixth and ninth respectively at Charlotte, third in Atlanta, 12th at Homestead, second at Kentucky, 29th (Texas), third at Kansas (1), fourth at Las Vegas 2 and last Sunday in Kansas 2. 

For the first Vegas race, he had a fast race car but a problem on pit road derailed his day this past February. He was crashed in Texas with a car capable of a top five. Everywhere else, he’s been good at. 

With so many different winners on 1.5-mile tracks this season and Truex not being one of them, he’s a good pick to win Sunday’s race and automatically advance to the Championship 4 as a result.