LDN - Sports

Ingram: True grit emerges in Charlotte, on Twitter

[October 10, 2017] By Jonathan Ingram, The Sports Xchange

For those who like old school NASCAR racing, the opening race of the second round of the playoffs at the Charlotte Motor Speedway had plenty of grit.

The plot may have been familiar -- Martin Truex Jr. won a record-tying fifth race on a 1.5-mile track -- but getting to the finish was anything but routine.

For those who think the current batch of drivers in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup are either too slick or too spoiled, the high humidity and a variety of circumstances set the stage for some throwback performances on the Charlotte track's washboard surface now traversed at 200 mph.

The asphalt treatment designed to add grip and create three avenues of racing apparently ran out of substance in the high groove. Kyle Busch miscalculated the influence of what used to be called "bear grease" and crashed into the Turn 3 wall while running in second place before the first stage had been completed.

Miscalculating by inches in his plan to create a higher groove, Busch spent the rest of the race hustling a hunk of junk to avoid being the first car out of the race and losing a passel of points. After finishing six laps down while trying to maintain the required minimum speed, Busch collapsed from both heat exhaustion and a dose of carbon monoxide poisoning upon emerging.

"I'm all right, I'm better now," Busch said after bags of ice brought his temperature down. He finished 29th and gained 10 points through his heroics. Thanks to his playoff bonus points, championship contender Busch is still on the good side of the cut line.

"I got heat soaked and felt like I had heat stroke just from being inside the race car for 200 laps with the crush panels knocked out of it. Obviously, it was my bad, just trying to get a little too much too early in the race and got too high out of the groove and got myself into the fence and tore the right side off of it. My guys did a great job trying to rebound and get it back together as much as we could throughout the day. It was just evil out there the rest of the day trying to stay with a relative pace with the rest of the field."

Not long after Busch incident, fire, the most fearful of motor racing ills, burst out when Ryan Newman crashed during a free-for-all on the back straight. Newman escaped with the help of the mandated fire suppression system in his Chevy. For a harrowing moment, the worst-case scenario engulfed him.

Once it was over, all drivers cited the extreme humidity that sapped their fluids and tested their metal in the sense that cockpits were often overheated and retained more carbon monoxide than usual. That was true of the winning Toyota of Truex Jr., whose footbox was lined with insulation in anticipation of a typical fall day and not the forerunner of a super-humid tropical storm.

Back in the day when there was no insulation between a driver and the engine compartment, which leaked carbon monoxide as well as oven-like heat, the problems with overcooked feet were resolved by some drivers of yore like Dave Marcis by wearing leather-soled Wingtip shoes.

For his part, Truex Jr. survived the heat to get through two late race restarts, including one in overtime. He emerged un-blistered and untouched over the last 57 laps after his pit crew put him in front and into clean air.

Perhaps the grittiest performance was turned in by someone not even at the track. The winning driver's longtime girlfriend, Sherry Pollex, stayed home to avoid the risk of infection after taking yet another chemotherapy treatment in her ongoing battle with ovarian cancer. Once Truex Jr. had survived those late restarts, Pollex tweeted a photo that showed her smiling in front of the TV with the winning Toyota in the background.

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Her tweet cited that old bromide about selling cars after winning.

"Well that was tough to watch," Pollex wrote. "But I'm cheering you on from home babe! Chemo Monday, victory lane Sunday."

For their part, Truex Jr. and the Furniture Row Racing team celebrated with great abandon. There was no worry about the test this coming Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway in the second race of the Round of 12. It's a race that looms large, like the three-story high banks at the Alabama track, because a multi-car Big One can ruin almost any driver's playoffs.

Except for Truex Jr., who advanced to the Round of 8 with his victory along with five more playoff bonus points, which gives him 64 -- more than one race's worth. Ink him in for the finale at the Homestead-Miami Speedway.

It's also clear the Furniture Row team recognizes that when it does well, it's an inspiration for a woman who is in the fight of her life and handling it with great courage.

The elevated heat, the stress and the relief when it was all over got to Truex Jr. once he was in Victory Lane, where Pollex usually joins him. To a standard question, he became overwhelmed with emotion before quickly exiting the TV interview to rejoin his team's celebration.

"I couldn't hold it in anymore," Truex Jr. said later in the post-race interview with writers. "Yeah, Sherry, I was thinking about her because she's not here, and I know she really wanted to be. She hates missing seeing our guys succeed. I know our guys love having her around when we win, and she's a fun person to celebrate with, so I thought about that. I thought about winning this first race of the round, the pressure coming off. Just a lot of things, I guess, you know. I was worn out. I just lost it for a minute. There's a lot going on, so yeah."

It was another reminder that NASCAR drivers may make millions, but they still are dedicated to winning a championship trophy that money can't buy.

"It just shows how much this stuff means to us," Truex Jr said. "We put everything into this, everything we have, especially our team, just every day away from our families. And I think they had this car up on the (chassis) plate on Wednesday or Tuesday with the nose cut off trying to make it better. Just the effort that they put in is amazing, and to succeed and be a part of that, it just feels unbelievable."

There is occasional trolling that suggests that Furniture Row and Truex Jr. have led 324 laps at Charlotte this year and have won on four other 1.5-mile tracks due to cheating.

If it's illegal to be dedicated, gritty and to take risks to keep improving, then these guys are cheating big time.

More likely, the trolls still hoping for an encumbered finish should find that same hole they crawled out of and return.

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