Analysis: It's time for Martin Truex Jr. to have a get-off-my-lawn moment

Editor’s note: The NASCAR Cup Series Round of 16 ends Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway. Watch at 7:30 p.m. ET on USA Network or NBC Sports App, and listen on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. | Details on Saturday‘s race

Forgive Martin Truex Jr. if he came off as NASCAR‘s grumpiest old man after getting body-slammed and brake-checked to the brink of playoff oblivion in his final season.

“I don‘t really understand how guys can call themselves the best in the world when they just drive through everyone on restarts at the end of these races,” Truex said after a 20th-place finish at Watkins Glen International dropped him to 14 points below the elimination line. “It‘s very frustrating. Just it is what it is these days. I‘m out of here. This racing is just ridiculous.”

That loosely translates to, “You kids get off of my road course!”

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But the exasperation is understandable from Truex, who literally is the elder statesman of the Cup circuit at 44 years old.

Against a new generation that he has labeled as “hard-nosed,” Truex truly might be remembered as the last of a breed from an era before double-file restarts and overtime dive-bombs. The term “gentlemen‘s agreement” still was in heavy rotation of NASCAR vernacular when Truex made his national series debut in 2001.

Before the playoffs started, the 2017 Cup Series champion was in an unusually introspective and reflective mood during a media day interview. When asked about his legacy, he listed being remembered as “fast, smart, clean and very fair.”

Now he must feel as if those same values might cost him a last shot at an elusive second title for the three-time series runner-up.

As the younger set often has been rewarded for playing rough in 2024, this season has been a slow-motion slide toward elimination for Truex. He has gone 16 consecutive races without a top five (worst among playoff drivers) and has averaged only 15.5 points over the past 10 races — the worst 10-race stretch in his career.

And next up is Bristol Motor Speedway, the outlier in his short-track magic.

MORE: Bristol lineup

A multiple-time winner at Richmond Raceway and Martinsville Speedway, Bristol curiously has been right alongside Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway as the winless bane of Truex‘s existence. Among tracks with at least 30 Cup starts, those are his three worst for average finish — all outside the top 20.

But Truex also is coming off a Bristol runner-up six months ago, and if tire management matters as much again Saturday night, the stage could be set for a breakthrough.

Imagine the ultimate heel turn of Truex knocking a rising Gen Z from the lead on an overtime restart, reaching the Round of 12 with his first victory at Bristol.

A story line for the ages indeed.

Here are other fast takes heading into Saturday night‘s first-round cutoff race at Bristol Motor Speedway (watch at 7 p.m. ET on USA Network or NBC Sports App, and listen on PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.):

Payback in pennies

With all the late-race chaos, it was easy to overlook that a contentious feud might have been reignited during the first yellow at The Glen.

But Corey LaJoie was well aware after starting the Lap 1 wreck that collected Kyle Busch. On his “Stacking Pennies” podcast this week, LaJoie said he was waiting for payback from Busch, who vowed retribution against LaJoie (whom he called a liar) two months ago after their wreck at Pocono Raceway.

Bristol might be the best chance for Busch to settle the score. With LaJoie headed to a new team (Rick Ware Racing) starting next week, it’s logical for Busch to contain his retribution to this race, and Bristol is also the last short track until the Round of 8 finale at Martinsville Speedway (when title implications will be sky high for setting the championship four). The 0.533-mile oval already is the site of several hit-and-runs for Busch (who has a career-best eight wins there), so keep an eye for when the Nos. 7 and 8 Chevrolets are around each other Saturday.

The feel-good story

Inside a building where the talk had been all about when everything will go dark, Chase Briscoe says, “It literally feels like the lights are brighter” in the halls of Stewart-Haas Racing. That started with Briscoe‘s miracle win in the Southern 500 that delivered a final playoff entry at SHR, which will close after the season. It continued after Briscoe overcame a 38th in the playoff opener at Atlanta with a sixth at Watkins Glen to jump six points above the cutline.

“The shop‘s been just super energetic,” Briscoe said. “Just us winning was a huge change in our whole demeanor as a race team. If we don’t win the Darlington race, guys were literally counting down the days to the end of the season. Now it just feels a lot like when Kevin (Harvick) was winning nine, 10 races a year. Just the entire atmosphere and the energy and the air is totally different than prior to Darlington. These last two weeks have been really, really fun at Stewart-Haas. It honestly feels just like the heyday.”

Can the team‘s surprising momentum continue at Bristol, where Briscoe has no top 10s in Cup but said the track is among SHR‘s five best? If it does, it could result in the awkward scenario of Briscoe advancing possibly at the expense of Truex, the driver he will replace at Joe Gibbs Racing next year.

“The stories kind of write themselves at this point,” Briscoe said.

Proceed with caution

There were no signs of massive falloff in practice lap times before the previous race at Bristol, so teams probably won‘t know until after the green flag Saturday whether tire wear will be a significant factor.

Christopher Bell, though, is hoping for pre-race clarity on what will constitute a caution. He‘d like NASCAR to hold the yellow flag for any tire problem, provided that the car avoids the wall. Though several drivers‘ tires expired roughly 30 to 40 laps into a run, the caution flew only twice in the final two stages on March 17.

Bell believes that‘s the right approach for two reasons: It puts an emphasis on driver skill with an incentive for saving tires, and it could allow for some unusually creative tactics. How about watching a furious strategy unfold in which the winner makes an extra pit stop and essentially passes the field twice to win the race?

“That really changes your mindset driving the car and the strategy that the crew chief is trying to play, and it really opens up the playbook,” Bell said. “Stage three in the spring ended up being an amazing show just for the fact that NASCAR let the drivers and the teams self-police itself.”

MORE: Cup standings | Cup schedule

Blue oval burst

After starting the year with no wins in the first 12 races, Ford has won the past four races in what has become a patented late-season surge for the manufacturer, particularly Team Penske.

During the first two seasons of the Next Gen, champions Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney both peaked at the perfect time in the playoffs.

But there is a danger of history repeating. Blaney enters Bristol as the third-ranked Penske driver and is likely very mindful that Logano was eliminated as the series‘ defending champion by a first-round crash at the track last year.

It all comes around

Because Bristol is “his house,” Denny Hamlin has exuded confidence about erasing a 6-point gap to remain in the playoffs. But if the Greatest Driver Never To Have Won a Championship comes up short yet again in a first-round elimination, he might be lamenting a win at Bristol as being the deciding factor.

It was the engine in his No. 11 Toyota that won March 17 at Bristol … and then was declared illegal in late August because of mistakes in postrace procedures that left it unavailable for inspection. That cost Hamlin 10 playoff points and a 75-point deduction from his regular-season total (which further eroded his playoff cushion).

Of all the ways in which Hamlin has lost titles (a faulty master switch, an oversized piece of tape, a malfunctioning roof hatch), it looms as being remembered as the most bizarre.

Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is the host of the NASCAR on NBC Podcast and also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.