NASCAR: How does ‘that mistake’ happen in the Championship 4?

How on earth does the mistake that cost a dominant Martin Truex Jr. the lead and perhaps the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series championship happen in the Championship 4?

After starting in third place in what was his third consecutive appearance in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. worked his way to the lead.

The 2017 champion took over the lead from Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick, one of the three drivers with whom he was battling in the Championship 4, on lap 21 of this 267-lap Ford EcoBoost 400 around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Homestead-Miami Speedway oval in Homestead, Florida.

Truex went on to lead 98 of the race’s next 100 laps, only giving up the lead during his pit stops.

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But during his scheduled pit stop during stage two, somehow his left and ride side tires got mixed up. As a result, he needed to make another pit stop, and that left him one lap off the lead lap in 13th place.

Fortunately, he got back onto the lead lap. But from this point forward, he was in dirty air, and the race belonged to teammate Kyle Busch.

Truex only ever returned to the race for lead five more laps, from lap 210 to lap 214, and he only did so simply because race leader Busch came into the pits earlier than he did. Busch ended up winning the race and the championship, his second, by 4.578 seconds ahead of Truex in second place.

How on earth does a mistake of this magnitude happen?

It’s the 36th race and final race of the season, a season of nine-plus months. There are 40 drivers in the field. Of those 40 drivers, 80% (32) are full-time drivers. One-eighth of those 32 full-time drivers (four) are championship contenders. The highest one of those championship contenders is crowned champion.

And the pit crew of the dominant and seemingly championship-bound driver screws up “left” and “right” in a routine that is executed hundreds upon hundreds of times to perfection each season.

“I think we got the tires switched. Bring it back to me,” radioed crew chief Cole Pearn to Truex, who felt the imbalance of the car and hardly needed to be told what was wrong.

“Yeah, I’ve never had that happen. No. No. I don’t even know what to say,” stated Truex, who also finished runner-up in last year’s championship fight following a late battle with champion Joey Logano of Team Penske, after the race. “No. It doesn’t drive good with the left-front on the right-front, though, I can tell you that. It’s very tight.”

While Truex reiterated that the day had gone very well up until the mistake, you never want to throw your pit crew under the bus, and fortunately he didn’t. It’s a team sport, and he had enough respect to realize that.

But you know he is going to be thinking about what happened and what might have been all winter — perhaps even all of next season. He did lead the series in victories this year with seven, but that ended up not mattering as a result of one mistake in race 36 of 36, a mistake that would have meant hardly anything had it happened in any of the other 35 events.

You also know that it won’t be leaving the minds of any of the pit crew members any time soon.

As for why it happened, it really just boils down to human error, albeit a disastrous human error at the most inopportune time one could possible select.

“I’m not sure [why it happened],” Tommy DiBlasi, the tire specialist on Truex’s #19 team, told NASCAR. “We had them laid out the same way we always have them laid out, and the tire carrier picks up the two tires that he goes over the wall with, and I guess he just accidentally grabbed the wrong one. It’s all that was. We were coming in to pit, turned around, grabbed two, went over the wall and as soon as the jack dropped, we saw that it said right-rear on the left-front, so it is what it is. People make mistakes, I guess.”

At the end of the day, people, no matter who and/or how skilled at anything, do make mistakes, and if we were all put under a microscope for every mistake we made, we’d all be enduring constant criticism.

But on this level, this was obviously more than an “under a microscope” incident. It potentially cost Truex a championship. To put it bluntly, it’s inexcusable, and the team realize that, and if they aren’t willing to publicly admit it, you know they’re still going to be thinking it.

This is one that is going to be talked about for a long time.

When they needed to execute the most with the NASCAR Cup Series championship on the line, they failed to do so in what really boils down to such a silly way.