Alan Truex: Can NASCAR’s likable new champion turn around a skidding sport?
After steadily losing popularity for more than a decade, stock-car racing may take heart from a championship race with a split-second finish, a dogged runner-up, Kyle Busch, and a winner, Martin Truex Jr., who’s the quintessential underdog and reality star of the year.
The winning team, Furniture Row, arose from the most humble of origins eight years ago, operating out of the warehouse district of Denver, while all the successful teams of the sport were in or near Charlotte.
NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt Jr. called Furniture Row “the outsiders out in Denver beating all us boys in North Carolina.”
At 37, Truex became America’s greatest car-racer, in large part because he started worrying less about himself and more about his long-time girlfriend, Sherry Pollex, who’s in her third year of battling cancer.
No longer was an air-block on the racetrack such an upsetting occurrence.
In hindsight, a good thing for a driver to have, Truex sees how his inability to cope with frustration slowed his ascendance. Frustrated by years of seeing less talented drivers in better cars, he developed problems with anger management. As a distant cousin of Martin Jr., I can say this may be a family trait.
So now, thanks to Sherry and her travails, he has learned all about perspective.
As he became more involved in supporting Sherry and her drive to raise money to cure ovarian cancer, Martin Jr. became less impetuous, more judicious on the racetrack, more balanced.
He has said, “With everything Sherry and I have been through, it’s made me a better person and a better driver.”
My bloodline connection to Martin Truex Jr. dates to a 17th-century common ancestor, Philippe Du Trieux, who was born in France but emigrated to America, via Holland. Martin Jr. was born in Trenton, N.J. His father was and is a clam harvester. He raced a stock car on weekends.
Martin Sr. gave his car to his son to launch his racing career. In his 20s Martin Jr. won plenty of races, but he struggled at the top level.
When he won Sunday’s championship race, at Homestead, Fla., he said, “You think of all the rough days, the times I thought my career was over with, when we couldn’t run twentieth. To be here, I never thought this day would come.”
Not that his triumph was entirely unforeseen. The season finale was his circuit-leading eighth win of the year.
“They had the best car most of the time,” Busch conceded. “They deserved it on probably every other race.
“But today, I thought we were better.”
It was not just sour grapes. Truex agreed with his view. “We didn’t have the best car,” he said. “I don’t know how we won that thing.”
There were several factors. A racing feud between Busch and Joey Logano was one of them. Another one: an accident caused, most ironically, by Kyle’s brother, Kurt.
But most of all, there was the smooth, versatile and patient driving by Truex, who did what he usually does, stayed out of trouble while running hard near the front, pounced when the opportunity came.
With 33 laps to go, Busch was in fourth place, trying to swing by the No. 22 car of Logano who was not among the four finalists but was still hoping to win. Or at least spoil the dream of a competitor he doesn’t like. Logano had been punched in the face by Busch after a race in March. Not easily forgotten.
So Logano did everything short of a collision to obstruct Busch. They dueled for nine laps. Busch lamented “wasting too much time with him. He held me up, air-blocking at every single chance he got. I got a real buddy there.”
Still, after finally putting away Logano, Busch’s No. 18 Toyota was running faster than Truex’s 78. “With twenty to go I thought I was done,” Truex said. “They were better than me in the long runs all day long.”
He was unable to stabilize his car in a smooth groove. “I finally found a lane I could use,” he said. “And it was blocking enough air they couldn’t use.”
Parker Kligerman of NBC Sports Network pointed out: “He’d find a line that was faster for his race car, but as the 18 would gain on him, he’d move the line, lap after lap, corner after corner, changing his lanes to take away the air from the 18.”
Busch had taken what was supposed to be his one pit stop in stage 4, and his crew had calculated he would win the race. Until his brother spun and crashed in Lap 252 of the 267. “The caution came out and ruined our racing strategy,” Busch said.
Truex passed Kyle Larson for the lead with 10 laps go. As Busch’s car approached him, the new leader prepared to claim the high ground, as crew chief Cole Pearn wanted.
“They did a test at Homestead,” Kligerman said, “and Cole made him work on running that outside lane. In the practice he hit the wall on that outside lane; he had to see how far he could go. He held Kyle off by being fast in the outside lane.”
Busch edged to within two car lengths of Truex but could draw no closer. Busch said he had worn out his tires jostling with Logano.
Some fans feel Busch deserved better. Others say he has himself to blame for alienating Logano, who at 27 has already won the Daytona 500 and 17 other Cup races.
Why was nobody blocking Martin Jr.? Could it be because he avoids making enemies?
Truex was asked if he won this race for his cancer-stricken partner. He choked up, wiped tears out of his eyes and said, haltingly, “A lot of it was for her, a lot of it was for me. A lot of it was for this team.”
A year ago Sherry’s cancer was in remission, but last July a golf-ball-sized tumor was found attached to her spleen. The spleen was removed, and she has missed some of her boyfriend’s races because of medical treatments.
But on Sunday she appeared vigorous and radiant, as she spoke with NBCSN reporters. “Everybody’s going through something,” she said. “I don’t want to have cancer but I do, and I’m going to help other people through our foundation, Sherry Strong, and I think we’ve done that this year.”
The team’s owner, Barney Visser, is going through something. He missed out on Homestead because he was home in Denver recovering from a heart attack and bypass surgery.
In the racing community there’s been much talk this week of karma, of destiny, of God’s plan, how the climactic race of the year was so supernaturally perfect. With Earnhardt retiring at the end of the day, NASCAR lost its most popular driver. But he sees a torch passing: “The sport needs drivers like Martin Truex Jr.”