DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.: If Martin Truex Jr. is nervous about earning one of the two final spots in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, he could win an Oscar for his cool, calm and collected demeanor.
Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series regular season finale at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway has two spots available for the 10-race run to the championship and Truex is desperately hoping to slide into the top-16 either by points or winning Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400.
Earlier this week – the odds weren’t as great, but with the withdraw of the injured Kurt Busch from Playoff contention – the number of spots available to the Playoff grid increased from one to two and while Truex could still find himself on the outside looking in when he heads to Darlington (S.C.) Raceway next weekend, it appears to be business as normal for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
“Well, yeah, first off, I mean, obviously, we’re all thinking about Kurt (Busch) and wishing him the best and hopefully, he gets better and he can come back and do what he loves to do,” Truex said Friday afternoon at Daytona. “He’s been a good teammate this year. First time I’ve worked with him and you know, Toyota that’s been fun. So, wish him the best and yeah, for us, we’re not in until it’s over tomorrow night.
“I don’t really have any feelings either way. We’re here to race and excited and two scenarios, one we get in on points, or we win the race. That will be optimum because of the points situations. But yeah, we’ll see. You know, we just kind of (see) how it all plays out and we can make our own way in there.”
While strategy will likely come into play for several teams Saturday night, Truex plans to race hard and earn as many stage points as he can during Stage 1 and Stage 2.
“I think we need to go race and try to stay at the front and try to get stage points,” added Truex. “You know, like I said, best case scenario for us would be to go out and win because you know, the owner’s championship points side of things. You know, what, you have to fall back on that last spot. We won’t be in on owner’s points.
“So, it’s not really what you hope to accomplish, right. So, we’ll just say like I said.”
And if Truex’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry is anything like his piece that he had during February’s Daytona 500, Truex could just become the 16th different winner in Cup Series competition this season.
“I think we had a really strong car here in February. Led a ton of laps won two stages. Then we got kind of banged up and then finished kind of tore up so you didn’t have the speed at the end of the race.
“But I had a really strong day going and Talladega went good as well. So, I feel like our car is really fast here. And hopefully we can take advantage of that. Would be a fun way to win one here with everything on the line.”
If Truex doesn’t score his first Cup win of the season Saturday and someone currently outside the Playoff rundown does – then Truex hopes to have accumulated enough points during the race to surpass Ryan Blaney who he chases for third in the point standings after 25 races.
Just 25 points separate Truex and Blaney and with stage racing opening up the opportunity to swallow much of that deficit, Truex can’t worry — he just has to climb in and “what’s meant to be will be – even if that means pushing Blaney to a potential race win.
“If he (Ryan Blaney) ended up in front of me at the end, and I wouldn’t have a problem pushing him,” explained Truex. “I’m not going to push a guy that hasn’t won yet. So, I mean, yeah, obviously, I’m going to do what I feel like is the best opportunity for me to win or be in position to win so that would probably be the best scenario.
“Push Blaney into the lead and pass him coming to the checkers.”
But this is Daytona and often the race becomes unpredictable, but the end result will be the same, he’ll either make it or he won’t. And Truex looks at it the same way.
Truex explained, “You never know what to expect here but you know it’s going to be wild and crazy and there will be a lot of crashes Rain in the area. Who knows when it could end. Does it even go the full distance? Weather tomorrow looks about like today. So, you know, they brought the last regular season race here for a reason.
“Right? Drama and craziness and that’s what we’re going to see. So that’s why you know, for me, I’m just like, we’re just going to go out there and race and try to put our best race out there and hope that we can get it done, but I don’t have feelings either way, right now, whether we’re going to make it or we’re not.
“We’re going to go a race and see how it all unfolds. And there’s a lot of things that can happen and we’ll just see what happens and take it from there.”
When asked if Truex has a love – hate relationship with the “World Center of Racing” or if he was just remaining optimistic overall, Truex was quick to reply.
““I’d say I’m pretty optimistic,” he sounded. “You know what we did in February, we can continue that and but yeah, I mean, just you have to stay out of the accidents, right? Because I mean, that’s the hardest thing to do here is you never know where they’re going to happen. You can be running second or third.
“You can be running 30th and trying to stay out of the mess so in February we led a bunch, like I mentioned, had a little trouble on pit road went back mid pack and coming back through and there’s a crash so you just never know when or where it’s going to happen.
“But yeah, I mean, as far as our speed goes and the things we’ve been working on between Drew (Herring, spotter) and I and James (Small, crew chief) just feel more confident. This year, I think with this car in general has run well for us and we’re feeling pretty good.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
