Martin Truex Jr. has slumped into Bristol Motor Speedway fighting for his season.
“It’s obviously a terrible spot to be in,” Truex said Friday. “Last week we didn’t even get a chance to race, which was disappointing. Coming off a tough Darlington race, and then, you know, two laps in you feel like you’re in trouble and a flat tire. Turns out you ran something over. It’s just terrible bad luck. We’ll do the best we can. But obviously it’s a bad spot to be in.”
Truex did seem worried — at least subdued — about the task ahead. Weather is already a potential added headache and a forecast of rain for Saturday night led NASCAR to decide more than a day in advance to move the scheduled start up by one hour on the half-mile track. Denny Hamlin nearly knocked his teammate from the top starting spot as the last driver to make a qualifying run. Hamlin came up short at 126.930 mph.William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports qualified third in a Chevrolet and was followed by McDowell in a Ford, Truex in a Toyota and Brad Keselowski in a Ford.
“Our thought process is we’ve just got a really good opportunity to make something happen,” Stenhouse said. “It’s a great racetrack for us. One of my favorite racetracks that we go to. We need a good day to make it into the playoffs. We want to win. We finished second there quite a few times and yeah, no better time to get the first win than right now.”Kyle Busch in his first season driving for Richard Childress Racing with a strong shot at advancing. He is seventh in the standings.