Martin Truex Jr. should be enjoying his fourth full season on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this season.
This should be his time to shine as one of NASCAR’s top up-and-coming young guns.
Truex Jr. should be part of a competitive team, and should be looking at picking up his first in what could be a long line of Sprint Cup championships.
There is just one thing wrong with these scenarios, though: He’s driving for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.
What once was a rising team in the Sprint Cup ranks with the likes of Truex Jr. and Dale Earnhardt Jr. has now become the laughing stock of NASCAR.
But EGR is struggling through tough economic times to find sponsorships for it’s four-car team, and Truex Jr. is paying the price.
He’s paying the price for sticking out with EGR this season after showing his loyalty by signing a one-year deal to stay behind the wheel of the No. 1 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet, and he’s paying the price for believing that EGR officials have his best interests in mind.
Coming off back-to-back top-15 seasons, Truex Jr. now finds himself in 23rd place in the championship points standings, and it doesn’t appear as if there is any light at the end of the tunnel — and EGR is strictly to blame.
Sure, it could be said that Truex Jr. just needs to just drive better to get himself back into the top12 and fight for a shot at the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, but all the good driving in the world won’t help when your race team just doesn’t have what it takes to get the job done.
It all started when Theresa Earnhardt allowed Dale Jr. to up and leave the race team for Hendricks Motorsports two years ago, and it got even worse when, after the then-Dale Earnhardt Inc. merged with Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates late in 2007.
But the worst was yet to come.
EGR opened the season with only three race teams after sponsorship for the No. 41 team failed to materialize. Now, with the recent announcement that operations were ceasing with the No. 8 team and another promising young driver in Aric Almirola, Truex Jr. finds himself with only one teammate — the No. 42 Target Chevrolet race team of Juan Pablo Montoya — and limited resources needed to compete with the big dogs, namely HMS, Roush Fenway Racing and Richard Childress Racing.
This wasn’t supposed to be the case for Truex Jr.
He was widely speculated to be leaving EGR after last season to join good friend and new team owner/driver Tony Stewart over at Stewart-Haas Racing, but Truex Jr. was loyal to the team that gave him his start and decided to sign on for one more year.
Shame on EGR for not coming through to help him out, and shame on EGR for leading Truex Jr. to believe that better days with the race team were ahead.
Stewart-Haas is enjoying great success in its first season, with Stewart in fourth place in the points standings, just 67 points out of the lead, and Ryan Newman, Stewart’s only teammate at Stewart-Haas, just outside the coveted top 12 in 13th place, just 30 points behind 12th-place Matt Kenseth.
Truex Jr., on the other hand, is a distant 23rd with a team that doesn’t seem to be able to get anything right and a race team in utter turmoil.
Truex Jr. told USA Today over the weekend that he was considering his options for the 2010 season already, and hopefully, he won’t be suckered into facing even one more season of mediocrity.
Now is the time for Truex Jr. to put loyalty aside and get out while he can.
Hopefully, Stewart-Haas has room in the stable for one more colt with a passion for winning.
Hopefully, Truex Jr. can get what he truly deserves — just a shot at being a contender.
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2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Points Standings
Rank…Driver…Points…Behind
1.…Kurt Busch…1299…---
2.…Jeff Gordon…1294…5
3.…Jimmie Johnson…1235…64
4.…Tony Stewart…1232…67
5.…Denny Hamlin…1190…109
6.…Kyle Busch…1124…175
7.…Carl Edwards…1119…180
8.…Clint Bowyer…1098…201
9.…Jeff Burton…1092…207
10.…Greg Biffle…1081…218
11.…David Reutimann…1077…222
12.…Matt Kenseth…1063…236
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