Kyle Petty claims regular-season champion Martin Truex Jr. won’t progress to playoff R-12
Martin Truex Jr. is seven points of the playoff cut-line.
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Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Petty (Via IMAGO)
Former NASCAR driver and NBC Sports Analyst Kyle Petty has claimed that the current bottom four in the R-16, including JGR’s Martin Truex Jr., won’t progress to R-12 in the playoffs. The regular season champion came into the playoff as the driver with the most momentum and was a concrete championship four contenders. Two back-to-back poor results have put him in a tough situation.
Tire failure has been the mortal enemy of Toyota teams in the first two post-season races of this year. At Darlington, all three JGR playoff cars saw their tire blow up, with the No:19 team suffering the most. It was the same case for the 2017 champion last Sunday at Kansas, where his P3 started and ended in the barrier on lap four following a right-rear tire failure.
KylePetty, while discussing the Kansas race results, has pointed out the possibility of the driver failing to produce the result that is needed next week and Bristol and getting knocked on first round of the post-season. Petty believes that the current bottom four of Truex Jr., Bubba Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Michael McDowell’s deficit is too big to overcome.
“As I look at the Playoffs, I talk about it every year: it’s tough to gain points in this system, it is incredibly easy to lose points in this playoff system. As we go into Bristol, we look at Martin Truex. He lost 32 points yesterday. 32 — 32 points! Coming out of Kansas. He’s not going to make up 32 points in Bristol, I can tell you that,” Petty said, as reported by ProTalk
“We look at Bubba Wallace, he lost 18 points. [Ricky] Stenhouse, loses 18 points. Michael McDowell lost 21 points. I am going to say this, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and I might be the only person in America that believes it, we may have seen this round set at Kansas, because I don’t believe that these four teams can recover that many points at a place like Bristol,” Petty added.
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Kyle Petty says Bristol race will be similar to Daytona
Petty pointed out that just like Daytona being a wildcard race, the Bristol concrete track race will also be one. He said that the bottom four drivers have a big probability of getting caught up in the mess, and once it happens, they might be forced to retire.
“We talk about Daytona being a wild card in the regular season, Bristol is the same type place. You get caught up in somebody else’s mess, you’re headed home. These guys may have been headed home from Kansas,” Kyle Petty said.
Regardless of the wildcard nature of the race, it’s going to be a tough task for Martin Truex Jr. as it hasn’t been the best track for him throughout the years. The Toyota driver has made around 30 starts at the track has never won one, and has just four top-four finishes. To progress, the No:19 driver has to produce his career-best run at the track.
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Justin P Joy
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