Martin Truex Jr. is thanking his lucky stars that he had such a strong regular season to net him 36 playoff points. He’s had to lean on them in each of the first two rounds. He’s finished 18th, 36th, 19th, 17th, 18th, 20th this postseason. He’s led no laps. In fact, if you go back to the regular season finale at Daytona, he’s finished 18th or worse in all seven races.

With 9 wildcard spots available into the Round of 12 and 5 into the Round of 8, Truex had enough of a playoff point advantage to squeak by. But, there’s only one guaranteed wildcard spot to the final round this time. I don’t think he can just lean on those playoff points to get to Phoenix. 

Which means he needs to start better. For Darlington, he finished 18th. For the Round of 12 opener at Texas, he was 17th. 

Las Vegas is a better suited track for him. Truex has 11 Top-8s’s in his last 12 Las Vegas starts. He was sixth and fifth respectively at Kansas last season and eighth and 36th this year. He’s had a Top-8 finish in four of the eight intermediate races this season too.

Then it’s to Homestead to where he has 3 top 2 finishes in his last 5 and would have been 4 if not for an issue on his final pit stop a year ago. 

Martinsville winds the Round of 8 down with Truex winning 3 of the last 8 there.

With 2 intermediate races and 1 on a short track, can Truex capitalize.

“We’ve won races this year, we’ve won the regular season championship, just got to get back to things clicking,’’ Truex, who could join Busch and Logano as the only multi-time champions in the series. “All it takes is having a good day today (in qualifying) and a good day tomorrow and we’re right back on track. We know what we can do. …I feel good about our team and where we’re at.

At one point, Truex was a 1.5-mile master. Among his first 19 race wins, 11 of them were on these tracks. 2 more were at Pocono and 1 at Fontana. He had just 1 win on a track that’s 1-mile in size or shorter and that was his first career win at Dover. 

Over his last 14 races wins however, 10 of which were on tracks 1-mile in length or shorter. His only wins since the end of 2019 were 3 at Martinsville (2019, 2020, 2021), 2 at Richmond, 1 at Phoenix (2021), 1 at Dover (2023), 1 at Loudon (2023), 1 at Darlington and 1 at Sonoma.