LDN - Sports

Ingram: Confident Truex feels it's his turn for title

[November 17, 2017] By Jonathan Ingram, The Sports Xchange

Martin Truex, Jr. enters Sunday's four-man rumble for the NASCAR championship as the favorite.

He's got the stats and he's got the confidence. He and his team have plenty of motivation to bring a racing title back to sports-crazed Denver.

But as the Chase Elliott versus Denny Hamlin feud has shown, rubbing is racing. Will there be some contact among contenders at the Homestead-Miami Speedway? If so, how will Truex respond?

The results of the race will not be mailed in. Nor will they be decided by a panel of journalists or the usual pre-race palaver among the contending drivers, including Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski.

Harvick, for instance, has declared himself free to chase the favored Toyotas of Truex and Busch after a late-season burst of speed from his Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.

The 2014 champion said he has no pressure. And, if you believe that, let's talk about beachfront lots in Antarctica.

Harvick, Keselowski and Busch each have a championship. Stepping up to multiple championships really elevates a career. There's only been three in the last 20 years. Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon are recognized as super heroes when it comes to stock car racing.

So, the pressure is not only on the favorite Truex, but also on the guys trying to get that second trophy and the first with Monster Energy's name on it.

Truex says he's not worried that he's the only driver who has not previously won a title. He says that means, "It's my turn."

Still, getting that first one must be nerve-wracking. In the last 20 years, there's only been 10 different NASCAR champions. There are plenty of talented drivers who still don't have one -- including Carl Edwards, who was leading last year's playoff chase in the late stages and who lost to Tony Stewart on a tie-breaker in 2011.

There are other circumstances that can serve to motivate Truex beyond the confidence from leading 2,175 laps this season, winning seven races and three poles.

His longtime girlfriend, Sherry Pollex, is again fighting ovarian cancer.

During the summer, Crew Chief Cole Pearn lost his best friend from his hometown in Canada to a freakish, deadly infection.

One of the crewmen on the Furniture Row Racing team, Jim Watson, died unexpectedly from a heart attack during the playoffs at age 55.

As if that's not enough to keep a team focused on getting the job done, team owner Barney Visser suffered a heart attack Nov. 4 and underwent bypass surgery.

It was Visser who rescued Truex from the slag heap at Michael Waltrip Racing after the cheating scandal of 2013. A man who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur and the only front-line team owner who wears a beard, iconoclastic Visser has pretty good vision. Some people put their money under mattresses. Visser put his money into them.

With a fortune from selling mattresses and furniture after starting with pillows, Visser built his team into a winner under the guidance of veterans Joe Garone and Mark McCardle (now working at Chip Ganassi's team). He saw the future in Truex, an even-keeled and smart athlete who needed only the right platform underneath him.

Four years and 11 victories later, Truex needs one more to get to the top of the heap. He'll have to do it with the recovering Visser back home in Colorado instead of in Florida.

"The story for me and my career would be a lot different if it wasn't for him and his team and what he's built," said Truex, who had two victories before joining Furniture Row.

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"Just so proud of what he's done and so proud to be a part of his team, and I feel like we've come so far together in just four years. It's really amazing. Just thankful and glad he's healthy and healing up, and he's going to be able to join us again at the racetrack pretty soon."

There has been panic from contenders at Homestead since it first became the final race of the postseason, but generally there's been excellent execution leading to memorable finishes. Truex expects to be in the thick of it with an attitude that sounds typically matter-of-fact without being too chill.

"I don't think it's any extra pressure at all," he said in comments to reporters after the last round in Phoenix. "I mean, I think it's -- I have a lot of respect for all three of these guys. Two of them were in the final four when I made it in 2015. Definitely have a little bit of experience in this position, but you know, honestly just excited about the opportunity. I feel like we're in a whole lot better spot as a team than we were the first time we had a shot at it, and we're going to go out there and just do the best job we can do."

Other than winning, the other die-cast memory moments of Truex, this year have been races where he led a lot of laps but came up short. Most recently, Harvick caught and passed him in the closing stages at the Texas Motor Speedway, which indicates maybe the Toyotas no longer have the edge on 1.5-mile tracks over the Fords. (Chevy, of course, has gone missing among the playoffs finalists.)

Given Truex's record six victories this year in Camrys on 1.5-mile tracks, I would expect to see him leading at Homestead in the late stages, barring errors in the pits. But I also expect to see a yellow flag at an inopportune time when the leader has to pit for fresh tires and give up track position, or, stay out and risk running to the finish on worn rubber.

A late yellow may not be the only problem for whoever is leading as the laps wind down. This year, there are more drivers than ever capable of winning who are no longer in the playoffs such as Kyle Larson, Elliott, Hamlin and last week's winner Matt Kenseth. So, the mix at the front of the field could get interesting when it comes to late-race pit strategy.

Early on, stages will matter for the title contenders only in terms of predictable cautions and track position strategies. Bonus points will not matter to the race's big cheeses, because the title goes to whichever one has the best finish. A crew chief might even call in one of the four contenders to pit before the end of a stage to avoid a packed pit road and then re-start at the front.

Toyota's Busch and Ford's Harvick and Keselowski are formidable talents. There's reason to believe each will have a good day when it counts. On the other hand, there have been meltdowns such as a poor race by Truex. and Furniture Row in 2015 or Busch's offkey performance in last year's finale after his title run in 2015. Last weekend, Keselowski struggled all day at Phoenix and was lucky to advance to the finale.

There also have been miraculous comebacks from the surely dead like Johnson's seventh title performance last year or Kurt Busch's incredible victory in the first year of the Chase in 2004. Busch had brake problems, lost a wheel and then came from the back of the field to win.

Will there be contact as in last year's block-and-wallop between Edwards and Joey Logano? Absent any magic lamp with a genie, rubbing fenders may be the path to holding the Cup at race's end.

Thus far, Truex's winning style has been to run to the finish in his Toyota like a train without having to crease any sheet metal. But what happens if there's a crowded field of aspirants, including non-playoff drivers, on late-race restarts?

In any event, it would not be wise to bet against a determined man who washes away the sadness of illness and tragic misfortune by hitting his marks on the track -- and possibly this time another car.

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