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Amidst his dreadful playoff run, Martin Truex Jr. is rebuilding momentum in the Round of 8. The 43-year-old claimed the pole position for the 4EVER 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver won the pole position with a lap of 167.411 mph, claiming his 22nd Cup career pole. Truex Jr. helped Toyota reach a major milestone in NASCAR, as it marked the manufacturer's 500th pole across the three national series.
The fight to reach the milestone was between three Toyota drivers, including Truex Jr. and both 23XI Racing drivers, Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick. However, the #19 JGR driver's time remained unbeaten until the end of the top-10 shootout.
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“I didn’t think (the lap) would hold up,” Truex told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns. “I thought we could have been a little bit better than everybody. You never know here with... scuff tires is always a challenge and just trying to figure out where everybody’s balance is gonna go. Just good job on my guys and pretty cool to get that number of poles for Toyota — and one, two, three as well.”
Bubba Wallace, with a lap time of 167.115 mph, will be starting on the front row. His teammate Reddick (166.955 mph) will be sharing the second row with Brad Keselowski (166.579 mph).
Defending race winner at Miami, Kyle Larson will start the 400-mile race on the third row alongside Austin Dillon. William Byron, Ross Chastain, Ty Gibbs, and Ryan Blaney round out the top 10.
Martin Truex Jr.'s teammate Denny Hamlin will start 11th while Christopher Bell was uncharacteristically slow on Saturday and will be starting 13th. Chris Buescher will lineup behind all contenders in 17th position.
Truex Jr. will lead the field to the green flag, which is scheduled to drop at 2:36 p.m. ET on NBC.
Martin Truex Jr. hopes for a turnaround at Homestead
The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series regular series champion has failed to continue the momentum into the postseason. Martin Truex Jr. has barely managed to escape elimination in the first two rounds with the playoff points, keeping his title dreams alive.
After scoring his first top-15 finish in the playoffs last weekend at Las Vegas, Truex Jr. hopes for a turnaround in Miami. He said, in the same interaction with NBC:
"It's a track I feel good about. Recent success is always important. Now (we're back) racing with the NextGen car, we got to race there for the first time (last year). That went really well and we were in position to win that race late and we had issues getting spun on pit road that took us out of it.
"I feel like we have a good notebook from last year to go off of. It's a place where I think we can make something happen."
Martin Truex Jr. is currently third in the standings and two points above the cut-off line. Starting in pole position for the Miami race, the #19 driver hopes to seal his playoff future this Sunday by winning the race.
