(Photo: Erik Smith | The Podium Finish)
LAS VEGAS — With a win on the line at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. and his No. 19 team decided to gamble. Their bet: staying out with old tires to restart first in NASCAR Overtime.
That wager didn’t pay off as Truex finished seventh in the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube.
“We’re in Vegas, we might as well roll the dice and like everybody says, we come here to gamble,” Truex said after the race. “I was proud of James (Small, crew chief) for that. Last year we didn’t and it bit us. We gave up a few spots, but all in all, it was a solid day.”
Truex maintained pace throughout the afternoon, finishing sixth and fourth in the two stages. In the closing laps of the race, Kyle Larson had a massive lead and appeared the likely winner after William Byron had dominated the first two stages.
But with four laps to go, Aric Almirola got loose and slapped the wall to cause a caution.
Teams had to decide whether to stay out on old tires or pit. Most of the top cars elected to take two tires, including the Hendrick Motorsports trio of Larson, Byron and Alex Bowman. Truex was the first car to stay out.
On the restart, Truex fended off the field through turns one and two and down the backstretch. But Byron, who beat Larson off pit road, passed Truex on the top to take the white flag.
Truex plummeted through the top five as he lost clean air, but still managed to scrape across his best result of the season.
(Photo: Christopher Vargas | The Podium Finish)
“We just hoped we would get to the white [flag] and maybe they would crash,” Truex said. “We did OK the first lap. We held second there for almost a whole lap and got into one in second after the white so we were in pretty good shape there, but got real tight in one and two and got freight-trained down the backstretch.
“You never know. If you can somehow get a good restart, get to the white flag and they crash then you win the thing. It almost happened.”
Truex said he was OK with the gamble because he felt he didn’t have a winning car. Although disappointed coming so close to victory, he’s satisfied with the afternoon.
He’ll head to Phoenix Raceway next weekend fifth in driver’s points.
“It was a solid day for our Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry TRD and everybody did a good job. Could never quite get it where we need it,” Truex said. “We were going to run probably at best third or fourth and threw a Hail Mary and finished seventh so not really a big deal there.”
Byron led a 1-2-3 finish for HMS with Larson and Bowman completing the equation. Bubba Wallace finished fourth and Christopher Bell finished fifth.
