Martin Truex Jr. gains momentum heading into California
PHOENIX—To say that Martin Truex Jr. has recovered nicely from a disastrous 35th-place finish in the Daytona 500 would be to understate the obvious.
After finishing a career-best second at ISM Raceway on Sunday—his second runner-up finish of the season and third top 10 in as many races—Truex climbed up to fifth in the point standings.
More important, Truex feels like the No. 19 team is finally hitting its stride after his offseason mov
“The cool thing is we keep getting better and better and better throughout the weekend,” Truex said. “I’m proud of those guys and proud of their effort. Obviously, congrats to Kyle (Busch, the race winner at ISM). Those guys were good all weekend.”
On Friday, Truex felt the team was a little off too far when they unloaded at Phoenix. He was ninth on the speed chart and ninth in qualifying. When they switched to race trim on Saturday, Truex posted the 19th quickest time in the morning and 17th best in Happy Hour.
Although he didn’t pick up any points in Stage 1, Truex finished fourth in the second stage and restarted third for the final segment of the race. After the last round of pit stops, Truex restarted 13th on Lap 226. Over the final 22 circuits, he shaved seven seco
Truex expressed relief at finding the same sort of comfort zone at JGR that he and crew chief Cole Pearn had established at the now-defunct Furniture Row Racing. In five seasons with Pearn calling the shots, the pair amassed 17 wins and claimed the 2017 Cup championship.
“It’s different,” Truex said of their new environment at JGR. “It’s a different cast of characters. The biggest thing is Cole and James (Small), our lead engineer, working together throughout the week to figure out how we want to show up at the race track.
“Obviously, with the new rules package, there’s so much to learn and so many things to figure out. We just haven't hit it really good off of the trailer on Friday. They’re working hard. They’re making good decisions. I just feel like we fail on either side of it. A few weekends here in a row, it’s caught us off guard a little bit, but I feel like as we go and learn this package and the mile-and-a-half package we’ll get it dialed in and once we start clicking on Friday when we unload, we’ll just keep getting better.”
Team owner Joe Gibbs is pleased with the progress of Truex and Pearn since the pair joined the organization this year. He has also noticed an uptick on the No. 11 Fed Ex team after Chris Gabehart became the crew chief for Denny Hamlin. That team won at Daytona and has three top 10s this season. As of Sunday's race, the Nos. 18 (Busch), 11 (Hamlin) and 19 teams are all in the top five in the standings.
“The last two weeks there has been a couple of runs in there where they’ve been super fast,” Gibbs said of the No. 19 team. “At the end of this race they were. It was great. I think it’s just a matter of time with him.
“I think Adam (Stevens, crew chief of the No. 18 team) can probably get a feel for it, but Cole coming over, I think our crew chiefs really work well together. Chris coming on board, I think we’ve got four guys there that are very bright and work well together.”
Truex wasn’t the only racer in the family to finish second over the weekend at Phoenix. His brother Ryan tied his career-best run with his second place finish in the No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet carrying the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation and SherryStrong.org liveries.
“Second-place weekend for the Truex’s, I guess that’s pretty good,” Martin said with a smile. “I’m pretty proud of him. He’s obviously been through a lot in his career—a lot of ups and downs. At times, he’s had a hard time grasping any kind of confidence behind the wheel.
“For him to go to a new team, work with a new crew chief and run second and show what he can do is a big day for him—mostly confidence-wise. Hopefully, that will help him sell some more races and hopefully get in that car some more.”
Coming off of his best run at Phoenix, a track where the elder Truex has scored just four top-five finishes in 27 starts, Martin's confidence is peaking as well. He’s excited to return this weekend to Auto Club Speedway, where he won from the pole last year.
“We’re going to one of our favorite tracks next weekend—California—and see if we can’t go back-to-back,” Truex said.
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