TRUEX PUTS EXTENSION TALKS ON HOLD

For now, at least, Martin Truex Jr., one of the hottest quasi-free agents in the sport, halted talks on a contract extension in the wake of his #1 team's season-killing penalties announced earlier this week.

"We’ve been working through some things, and certainly [with the penalty] last week, I said to myself, ‘This isn’t the first thing on my list right now, there are some other things we had to work through,’ ” Truex said regarding his ongoing contract talks according to SceneDaily.com.

“We had some great things at DEI this week, some great meetings on what happened, how we’re going to fix it and the direction we’re headed as a race team.

Truex was penalized 150 driver points, and the company 150 owner points, in the wake of a failed inspection at Daytona last weekend. The penalties dropped Truex from a manageable 88 points out of the final Chase spot to an insurmountable 238 points out.

More importantly, Truex went from the one small step of having two drivers to overtake for the position to needing one giant leap for mankind to vault past six drivers with a mere eight races remaining until The Chase.

As to his contract situation, multiple sources continue to tell Stock Car Talk that the option for Truex in '09 is a mutual option. Both sides must pick up all aspects of the option in order for it to be enforced, sources said.