[autotag]Martin Truex Jr.[/autotag]’s winless streak in the NASCAR Cup Series has almost reached a full season of races, but he thought Sonoma Raceway could’ve snapped it. Truex took the lead from Chris Buescher but took too long as Kyle Larson powered by quickly. Then, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver ran out of gas on the final lap, finishing in 27th place.
Following the event, Truex climbed out of his car after a frustrating finish and talked about the fuel woes at the end of the event. He was clearly annoyed that he repeated what Ryan Blaney dealt with at World Wide Technology Raceway last weekend.
“I’m not sure why we didn’t try to save a little at the end,” Truex said. “I was clearly not going to catch [Kyle Larson] or pass him. It’s a shame that we went around the last corner and went from second to wherever we finished. It sucks, but it was a tough day, and we had a good car. We battled and did a good job. We were going to have a good day, but just one corner short.”
Martin Truex Jr cheered across the line with no fuel: pic.twitter.com/W2OcdPejph
— Jonathan Howard (@Jondean25) June 9, 2024
“It was a tough day. I got spun out early and had to work hard to get some track position back. [James Small] did a good job on our strategy. Our car was pretty good out front; thought we were going to have a shot to win there and just couldn’t quite get by [Chris Buescher] quick enough. I finally cleared him; I made a mistake and the No. 5 was right there to pounce and then obviously ran out of gas, so it didn’t matter.”
Truex lost 25 points after running out of fuel at Sonoma. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver still sits 128 points above the playoff cut-line, but this should’ve been a momentum-building race moving forward. Instead, Truex will need to regroup and find a way to enter victory lane for the first time in almost one year at Iowa Speedway this weekend.