Under normal circumstances, a fourth-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway would be a fine day for Martin Truex, Jr. However, the race ended with Truex in a highly unfamiliar place: the playoff bubble.
Entering Sunday’s race (July 17), Truex was one of three drivers in position to reach the postseason without a win so far in 2022. Among the winless drivers, Truex trailed Ryan Blaney by 71 points but enjoyed a lead of 43 points over Christopher Bell. It’s an odd situation for Truex, whose participation in the playoffs is usually a foregone conclusion by this point in the year.
For most of the afternoon, it looked like Truex was finally in position to break his winless drought. Starting from the pole, the No. 19 Toyota launched into the lead and appeared almost unstoppable early in the race. Truex won both stages with little opposition as no one had a car that could roll through New Hampshire’s flat, sweeping turns better than his. It was clear that beating Truex would require a competitor finding something that the No. 19 did not have.
In the end, that something was fresh tires. During a caution period following Todd Gilliland’s spin on lap 205, Truex and crew chief James Small opted for two tires, hoping to retain good track position for the end of the race. Most of the other drivers who visited pit road took four, which turned out to be a better call.
Although the first two-thirds of the race were punctuated by yellow flags, the final 92 laps to the finish ran caution free. While Truex struggled to move through the pack on older tires, Bell charged into the top five and made the decisive pass for the lead on Chase Elliott with 42 laps to go. Bell went unchallenged the rest of the way, capturing his first win of 2022 and the second of his Cup Series career.
Truex was left empty handed.
“Obviously, we should have done four (tires), but that’s hindsight,” Truex said after the race. “That’s just Loudon for us. It’s every year we lead a ton of laps, we run really well here, and then we find a way to give it away.
“It’s a tough decision,” he added. “Being the leader, they’re all going to do the opposite of you. Overall, it was a hell of a run. This place, man it’s killing me.”
Truex isn’t kidding when he talks about races at Loudon slipping away from him. Since 2016, he has led 768 laps at New Hampshire over the course of nine races. All but two of those resulted in top 10s and none of them were wins. Even…
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