Martin Truex Jr. reacts to devastating speeding penalty in Bristol Night Race

Tonight, Martin Truex Jr. was not able to advance to the Round of 12 in the NASCAR Playoffs. He has been eliminated after Bristol. His entire season came down to a single pit road speeding penalty.

Martin Truex Jr. was doing what he had to do. He earned stage points and looked like a top-five car on the night. But a pit road speeding penalty put him in the back of the field on the lead lap. He never made it back through the field.

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It was another short track race with little to no passing. Even a fast car with a great driver like the 19 with Truex couldn’t move through the field despite having superior speed.

After the race, Truex was slightly dejected to have the final season of his career end this way.

“It’s really tough you know. Point zero nine miles per hour that you know kind of screws your whole chance at a good season up,” Martin Truex Jr. said on the broadcast afterward. “So yeah. Just I don’t know how that happened. I didn’t know I was even that close. Honestly, I felt like I did the same thing as every other stop. But sometimes you’re just a foot maybe a foot to the left or it’s so tricky when you’re going from that curved section to the straight to get your lights. And it’s on me. Obviously, it’s my mistake.

“Yeah I mean they said we were gonna have to run second or third there to have a chance and I don’t know if we could have done it but it would have been nice to see. And just really sad for my guys they worked so hard. We had a really strong car tonight and we did, you know, we got a lot of stage points we did what we needed there. Just hate I screwed it up. I wish we could have at least seen if we could have done it. Would have been fun to have a fighting chance. From here we’ll just go on and try to race hard and hopefully go back to victory lane before it’s all said and done.”

Like the professional he is, Martin Truex Jr. owned this one tonight. He was a bit emotional in his last statement on the night.

“You never like to let anybody down, you know, no matter what the situation. So, I hate that I did that tonight.”

In his NASCAR career, Martin Truex Jr. has represented the best of the sport. There was a point in time when it looked like he wouldn’t have a future.

Two Xfinity Series championships, a Cup Series championship, and two regular season championships in Cup as well. No Round of 12 this season but there will be a Hall of Fame jacket on his shoulders in a few years.