LOUDON, N.H. — For much of Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, it looked as if Martin Truex Jr. would catch a break and maybe even a win.
Two weeks ago, Truex lost his spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup field after Michael Waltrip Racing was severely penalized by NASCAR for trying to fix Sept. 7 race at Richmond International Raceway.
And just three days ago, he learned sponsor NAPA was dumping him because of the controversy.
But Truex, who is still sporting a cast from a broken right wrist suffered in a crash Aug. 24 at Bristol Motor Speedway, overcame all those distractions Sunday, flirting with victory lane before ultimately finishing 10th.
Truex led 98 of the first 166 laps — trailing only race winner Matt Kenseth (106) in total laps led Sunday — while building comfortable margins.
It would have been a striking paradox — carrying a stained sponsor's colors and a battered team to victory lane in the bright lights of the Chase. But the Truex success story ultimately was rewritten by circumstances, and those circumstances were clouds.
After much of the race was run under sunny skies, a menacing cloud cover arrived for the last portion of the 300 laps, significantly changing the track surface and turning the Truex Toyota from sublime to slippery. After running in the top five for almost all of the first 260 laps, Truex no longer had the speed to run up front and stay there.
"We just weren't good enough when it counted," Truex said. "We ran in the top three all day and then sort of on the last restart we drop from second to 10th."
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Truex complained about the balance of his last set of tires but said his problems were "more track condition than anything. Even when we were leading, we were tight. (Crew chief) Chad (Johnston) was trying to work on it, but we couldn't make any headway. As it started cooling off those last hundred laps, it really started going away."
Truex moved into overdrive with about 50 laps to go, pushing the car toward the ragged edge. That put too much strain on his right rear tire, dropping him through the order to 10th.
"We just couldn't get it going," he said. "Couldn't get it turning good. I burned the rear tires off trying to turn in the long runs. I couldn't turn and couldn't step on the gas. The last 100 (laps) were tough, but, really, the last 50 was where we got killed."
But after two weeks of painful headlines, and with his future in the sport up in the air, Truex said it was fun to see his team showing its best.
"This is by far our worst track on the whole circuit," he said. "To come here and run like we did today, it says a lot for the guys and what they're able to do. I feel like we've got some really good tracks coming up. I'm not sure what the future holds, but I'm proud of these guys for staying focused and not letting it get to them and doing a good job this weekend."
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