Truex Jr.’s confidence in high gear

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Martin Truex Jr. already looks like the coolest cat at the club, with his shades and scruff and disarming smile, yet he has even more reason to be relaxed and confident at Kansas Speedway this weekend.

Start with the fact that he’s already clinched a spot in the next round of NASCAR’s playoffs with his win at Charlotte. Brad Keselowski is also assured of advancing through the round of 12 after Sunday’s race, but former champs such as Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Las Vegas native Kyle Busch are on the bubble.

Then consider the fact that Truex always runs well at intermediate tracks, finishing in the top 10 in his last five starts with a trio of victories. He’s especially good at Kansas, where he routinely runs up front and exorcised some bad luck with a victory in May.

Finally, there’s the fact that Truex was fast the moment he unloaded Friday, winning the pole and earning not only a prime pit stall for the Hollywood Casino 400 but also the first pick next week at Martinsville.

That all led to this admission from Johnson, who is chasing his record-setting eighth Cup title: “The (No.) 78 has sort of controlled the year. We’re all jealous of the situation they’re in.”

It’s not as if Truex and his Furniture Row Racing team have lucked into this situation.

The only NASCAR team headquartered west of the Mississippi River went through years of fits and starts, with team owner Barney Visser often pouring gobs of his own money into the project. And things didn’t look as if they were getting much better when Truex came aboard for the 2014 season.

He managed five top-10 finishes, led a single lap all year and finished 24th in the standings.

But the team kept grinding and the following year dominated the spring race at Kansas before a poor pit stop shuffled him back. The result nevertheless sent confidence soaring, and the team broke its 69-race winless drought at Pocono that summer — and quite simply never looked back.

With a new manufacturer in Toyota and a new alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, the team won four times last season and cruised into the playoffs. That number has soared to six this season, and Truex needs to lead just 23 laps at Kansas on Sunday to break the 2,000 mark for the year.