Truex cautious in Martinsville finish: 'I don't want any enemies'

With a 17-point lead in the Monster Energy Cup Series point standings, Truex could afford to be a little more gracious with his fellow competitors. 

At Martinsville Speedway, Truex’s generosity paid off with a second-place finish behind winner Kyle Busch. 

Not wanting enemies

No, the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota wasn’t even close to being the fastest car on Sunday. But Truex picked his spots over 500 laps and kept his nose clean for a career-best result.

“I try to race a certain way, and that’s just how I race, and that’s how I raced tonight,” Truex said. “There was a hole there, I got in it and thought I had a shot at beating him fair and square. Just couldn’t get the power down off of 4. It never crossed my mind to knock him out of the way. I know he hit the 11 out of the way, and that's I'm sure going to be a sore subject for those two.

“Seemed like a lot of guys made enemies tonight and we didn't. With three races to go, I don't really think I want any enemies, and I'm in pretty good shape. We'll just keep doing our thing and race our race, and Texas should be a great track for us, so hopefully we'll go there next week and just continue to do what we've done all year long.”

Short track prowess

Truex’s strength has been on intermediate tracks where he's scored eight of 12 wins since joining Furniture Row Racing. Although he’s still searching for his first win at Texas Motor Speedway, Truex has five-consecutive top-10 finishes and led 257 laps in the last four races.

In 24 starts, Truex has posted just three top-10 finishes at Martinsville. While the No. 78 crew has blossomed over the last two years, he has yet to score a short track win with the team but they have picked up the pace.

“I feel like we've run really strong on the short tracks this year, obviously, if you look at the races and leading late at Richmond, leading the most laps there,” Truex said. “We led a ton of laps at New Hampshire both times, and it felt like the first Bristol we had it won until we got speeding on pit road. I felt like our short track program has really come a long way, especially this year.  

“But this in particular, Martinsville, was still one that we were really working on and one that has been difficult to figure out for us.  With that said, I thought today we made a big step in the right direction. You know, we ran fifth in the first two stages and then to finish second was good. I thought we were a fourth‑ to sixth‑place car all day long, and for us that's a positive from the spring. This place is so unique and so different than anywhere we go, it's just one of those places that's difficult to figure out.”

A strong position

As solid as Truex’s cars have been all year, he can execute certain moves where other competitors might have to accept more risk in the process. But with three races remaining in the season—and the title on the line— patience paid off for Truex once again.

“Well, yeah, there's a lot of things I could have done differently, but ultimately what I did, came home second,” Truex said. “I thought ‑‑ like I said, I had a tough battle with Clint (Bowyer, third-place) side by side coming to the white and was lucky enough to clear him and then ultimately have a shot at the lead because of the 18 (Busch) and the 11 (Denny Hamlin) getting together. You know, had I not cleared Clint, I wouldn't have even had a chance.  

“So I don't know that I would have done anything differently.  I thought the hole opened up, I drove inside of Kyle, and I wasn't going to go run into him; that's just not the way I do it.  I think we can get to Homestead without, like I said earlier, making too many enemies.  We'll let everybody else fight and we'll try to do our own thing.”