Martin Truex Jr. Leads Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Dismal NASCAR Statistic, Seeks to Make Amends: “Just Made Too Many Mistakes”

For every great NASCAR driver, there is that one particular track or race where he performs exceptionally well for most of his career, coming close to winning it multiple times, but failing to get over the line for some reason. Kind of like Dale Earnhardt’s 19-year winless streak at the Daytona 500, before he won it in 1998, after coming excruciatingly close on multiple occasions. This week, as NASCAR heads to New Hampshire, Martin Truex Jr. will want to break an unfortunate streak of his own.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver will start behind teammate Christopher Bell for the Crayon 301 seeking to remove his name from a list the 2017 Cup champion won’t be proud to lead.

Martin Truex Jr. is ahead of Dale Jr. in a statistic he will want to change

In an astonishing stat, Martin Truex Jr. has led 916 laps in Loudon over 29 races without a win. The best result the #19 has managed is a third-place finish in 2020, with several times over the years when he ‘just had it’ and let it slip away. And this is something he acknowledges.

During a media interaction ahead of the race, Truex said, “So it’s been a couple of different things over the years. Sometimes we just overall gotten beat and other times we’ve had a good enough car, just made too many mistakes. Short race you can’t give up track position here, obviously, and you got to do everything right.”

Even more incredible is the fact that Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is number two on the list, is almost 600 laps behind Truex. In his 35 starts here, Junior led 378 laps, with his best finish coming way back in 2004, in third place. This just puts Truex’s situation in the most fascinating context.

This weekend, Truex seemed confident after qualifying in second, adding, “We had a good practice and, seems like we had a lot of speed. So just this place is all about getting the balance and I’m trying to stay, stay with it all day long. We’ve been able to lead a lot here and not at the end. So hopefully this weekend will be our time.”

Truex Jr. is still focused despite securing a place in the playoffs

After a largely disappointing 2022 season, Truex has bounced back in incredible fashion in 2023. He has two wins this season and looks well set to make a deep run for the Championship, something most analysts are predicting.

That being said, the JGR driver is not taking anything lightly. Truex still wants to finish the regular season as the points leader, adding, “I mean it’s a big deal for all of us. I mean, 15 points is a lot of bonus points, so, that’s really what we’re all after. And, it’s a sign of consistency and it’s difficult to win. So, we got some tight competition there with us right now after a tough weekend last weekend. So, we just keep grinding it out and see where we can come up with.”