Fourteen races into the season, numerous drivers who went to Victory Lane a season ago are still in pursuit of their first points-paying win of 2022. Among them are Ryan Blaney (who won the non-points-paying All-Star Race two weekends ago), Martin Truex Jr., Christopher Bell, Aric Almirola, Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace and Michael McDowell. The most surprising absence from Victory Lane has been Truex, the 2017 Cup Series champion, who has triumphed at least once in each of the past seven seasons.
No other driver on the aforementioned list besides Keselowski has such a lengthy streak, but, unlike Truex, Keselowski is with a new team and has a different crew chief this season. Truex is with the same team at Joe Gibbs Racing he’s been with since 2019 and is in his third season with crew chief James Small. So will Truex become the next 2022 non-winner who won in 2021 to make his way back to Victory Lane?
Sitting fifth in the standings, Truex has enjoyed a solid season up to this point and seems generally optimistic about the direction of his team. “Hopefully, we can win soon,” Truex recently said. “It’s been a decent year so far. We’ve been OK. We’ve had a couple tough races, but that is to be expected with this. We’ve got some good tracks coming up, so if we can do our jobs well, hopefully, we can put ourselves in a good position. I don’t know that we’re the fastest car out there right now, but maybe we can find some stuff.”