Things did not go as planned for Martin Truex Jr. during the first round of the playoffs. After terrible performances in the first two races, he was on the verge of being eliminated. However, a relatively better third race and a bucketload of luck allowed him to move on to the next round.
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Now moving on to the next series of races before the round of eight begins, several questions have been raised regarding the Joe Gibbs Racing driver and his championship-winning possibilities.
Recently, NASCAR insiders Parker Kligerman and Kyle Petty discussed whether Truex Jr. would be able to bounce back and reclaim his position as the championship favorite after the points reset.
Kligerman analyzes Martin Truex Jr.’s championship hopes after a lucky escape
While speaking on the NBC Sports podcast, Kligerman stated, “I think he’s a Championship four threat for sure right? And he has obviously a situation with the points that puts him in a great position to do just that. You’ll get through these rounds, but I think to me, when you have an upsetting couple races like that, you just, you got to see if the race team can turn it around.”
“Can they stop the bleeding a little bit and that’s, sometimes it’s out of your control. It’s just circumstance, things like that, but it just it hurts race teams mentally right when they when they don’t get the results and they feel like things are going the wrong way. And there’s a slide happening and it can’t stop it. So it’s really going to be up to them to reset, refocus. I think Texas is a big opportunity for them.”
Kligerman concluded that the upcoming races at the Texas and Roval present an opportunity for Truex Jr. to get some momentum. However, he expressed concern about the Talladega race and believes that the next two races are crucial for the #19 team.
Kyle Petty doesn’t list Truex as his favorite for the championship
Petty mentioned that he believes the key to success for the #19 team is their ability to recover mentally from the first three races of the championship, considering that they did not perform like a championship contender in those earlier races and lacked the quality and caliber necessary to compete for the ultimate prize.
He also emphasized that the team’s success moving forward will depend on their ability to overcome these setbacks and perform at a higher level in the upcoming races. Petty elaborated, “Even at Bristol. If we go back to that race, they showed no sign that they could compete with Denny Hamlin or Kyle Larson or some of the other teams. So I think it’s in their head. They’re going to have to come back.”
“They’re going to have to recover from this and say, ‘Okay, this is our playoffs. We reset right here, we go back to doing what we were doing as the playoffs began. We go back to leading races to running up front to having shots at winning a race.'”
According to Petty, while the #19 team has the potential to be among the final four teams competing for the championship in Phoenix, they are not currently one of his top picks to win the title.
