Photo – Matt Sullivan/Getty Images

With a fourth-place finish in Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. collected his fourth straight top five at the track nearest his Mayetta, New Jersey, home, but that was small consolation for a driver who was frustrated at being unable to contend for the victory.

Compounding Truex’s issues was an unscheduled pit stop for a flat tire on lap 96, 24 circuits before the end of the second stage. That cost Truex a lap he had to get back on a wave-around.

“It was up and down, you know?” Truex said. “I thought we were pretty good at the beginning of the race and lost that lap and had to come from the back. Just really hard to pass here today. Our car was fast in clean air, but I couldn’t pass anybody – especially those last 200 laps once we got somewhere up towards the front.

“So it was all about where we come off pit road and how we restarted and it’s frustrating, but we just couldn’t seem to make the car turn off the corner all day long. It was tight from the get-go, and that really hindered me in traffic.”