Martin Truex Jr. wins pole award for 4EVER 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway

For the second time this season, Martin Truex Jr. earns the pole award. This time to start the 4EVER 400 at Homestead-Miami. The NASCAR Cup Series regular-season champion might be coming to form just in time.

Last week was Martin Truex Jr.’s first top-10 of the NASCAR Playoffs. Now, he has his first pole award of this postseason. If Truex has speed in the long run, this might be a day where he dominates the field.

Bubba Wallace will start next to Truex Jr. on the front row. We know how dominant Truex is when he has the best car – there is a lot of racing to do on Sunday, but he has a very fast Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry, folks.

REPOST to congratulate @MartinTruex_Jr for winning the pole!#NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/DnkdGazTQn

— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 21, 2023

Not only did Martin Truex Jr. earn his 22nd pole award, the 2017 champion just earned Toyota their 500th pole award across the three NASCAR national series.

There was a lot of worry about Truex. He almost got eliminated, twice. He was the regular season champion and then all of his speed went away. Like some terrible NASCAR version of Spacejam, seemingly his talent just went away.

Of course, that’s not how NASCAR works. Racing ebbs and flows at times. Setups don’t hit right, bad luck strikes, whatever it is. That’s why consistency is so impressive in this sport.

Martin Truex Jr. puts NASCAR Playoffs on notice

He may have been lackluster through the first seven races of the playoffs, but no more. Martin Truex Jr. earns his first pole since the Darlington spring race, and that’s good news for 19 fans. He’s put the Cup Series Playoff drivers on notice.

That was during the time of the season when Truex dominated. He looked like the best driver in the Cup Series from the spring to the summer months. That last pole award came just two weeks after his win at Dover. Then he went on to earn three more top-5s and a victory at Sonoma in the next four races after that.

The last thing I want to see from Truex and his team – differing tire strategy. With pole position, Truex can more or less dictate that first round of pit stops. So, we’ll see if he has what it takes to do that, and if crew chief James Small makes the right decisions.

Martin Truex Jr. has the fastest car. He doesn’t need to get tricky. I’m looking forward to seeing what Truex can do on this track. It should be an interesting Sunday in South Beach.