One more chance and yet another mistake. This is the underlying statement that captured the fate of Martin Truex Jr. and the #19 Toyota team. This time, the mistake was too much to recover from. With just one top-10 performance throughout the playoffs, the Joe Gibbs Racing star has clearly lacked speed and luck lately.

The regular season championship points aided Martin Truex Jr. to advance into the round of 12. The same happened when he advanced into the round of 8. But owing to the ruthless battle that the penultimate round is, his points advantage ran out and Martin Truex Jr. got ousted from his shot at the Championship title this year. Even his teammate, Denny Hamlin, who won Stage 1, was second in Stage 2, and finished 3rd overall in the race, was chucked off the list. Needless to say, Martin Truex Jr. was disappointed with his team.

Martin Truex Jr. fires shots at his crew over the radio

Everything looked good for Martin Truex Jr. before Sunday’s race kicked off. Saturday during the qualifying, Truex flaunted a fast lap of 94.153 mph, which was good enough to get him the boost that he needed amidst his playoff woes. On top of that, it was his third pole of the season and second straight. But it went southwards for the regular season champion when NASCAR slammed him with a pit road speeding penalty on lap 219.

Had the New Jersey native not suffered from the pit road speeding penalty for an ill-timed pit road commitment, the day could have panned out way differently for him. Having been pushed to the rear end of the field, Martin Truex Jr. entirely missed out on capitalizing on the clean air.

The unfortunate event made him fall back to 22nd in the 36-car field, with 92 laps to go. And he never came up front after that. With only a couple of yellow flags following the poor pit stop, Truex and his team couldn’t regain their track position and had to settle for a P12 finish, which wasn’t enough for him to corkscrew a spot in the Championship. Truex didn’t pull any punches, snapping at his team on the radio during the race before quickly apologizing, “Should’ve pitted. We’re screwed. Why do we do stupid things? I’m sorry.”

Moments after coming out of his machine, a frustrated Martin Truex Jr. revealed how one could end up at the back of the field despite having a fast car. And for him, he fell just 0.2 mph short of sealing the deal.

Watch this story: Martin Truex Jr’s Playoff Hopes Dim as Joe Gibbs Racing Struggles

Martin Truex Jr. shed light on the difficulty of stock car racing

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When 40 cars run at full throttle to grab the checkered flag, it becomes incredibly difficult to win on an overkill. Martin Truex Jr.’s performance throughout the regular season had been impressive, but it needed to continue for another 10 races.

According to Truex, the nuance of unpredictability is the sourest part of this sport. “It just shows how tough this sport is,” he said, “Anybody that races here and guys that have raced here that do the broadcasts, they’ll tell you. It’s this close, man. You find this little bit, and suddenly you look like a hero. Some other guys find some stuff, suddenly you’re not,” he went on to explain.

The 2017 Cup Series champion continued, “We’ve been fast at times, but execution hasn’t been solid, hasn’t been consistent. We’ve had some bad luck.”

But it wasn’t just one thing. Sometimes, his tire blew off, and during the others, his engine blew off. According to the #19 Toyota star, they have had a little bit of everything. He admitted, “Like I said, some years it feels like it’s your year, some years it feels like it’s not. I just feel we couldn’t do anything right. If it was ever a 50/50 call, it always went against us. A blown engine, a flat tire, you name it. Problem after problem.”

“Just kept setting us back, and we couldn’t get no momentum. I think we did a great job today. It was a tiny little error, .2 miles an hour can ruin your whole year, unfortunately,” he added.

Only one race remains in this season for Martin Truex Jr. His fans could only hope that Truex stays in the game for a few more years and comes back stronger in the upcoming season. Meanwhile, NASCAR prepares itself to crown its 2023 Champion next week at the Phoenix Raceway.

Read more: Joe Gibbs Racing’s Implosion Could Be Monumental for Martin Truex Jr’s Post-Season Redemption Arc