Titlist Truex hopes to pick up where he left off
2017 performance shows driver is true champion
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – For much of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career, Martin Truex Jr. carried the label of journeyman driver — one who showed up every week, ran well occasionally and had the potential to pop a win now and then.
Times certainly have changed. Truex opens the 2018 season as the defending Cup champion. Beyond that singular accomplishment, there is much more. Truex not only won the title but also did it in commanding fashion, stacking up stage wins like Legos and winning eight races as NASCAR debuted its new points system.
Most remarkably, over the closing 10race stretch that made up the playoffs, Truex won four times and had one finish worse than fifth.
In 2014, Truex led only a single lap. Last year, that expanded to 2,253.
Journeyman? No. A solid champion looking for more.
“I really feel like we can start the season right where we left off, just pick up where we left off and continue as a team as we’ve done the last couple years,” Truex said. “We know what to work on, and we’re just going to keep going down that road and hopefully have more success.”
The New Jersey native had a busy offseason, making appearances across the country, traveling to Denver and the Furniture Row Racing headquarters several times and — a high point — attending the Super Bowl to cheer for his “home” team, the Philadelphia Eagles.
It was busy and tiring, but Truex quickly responds to questions about the responsibility tied to the championship by saying he would volunteer for the tasks again.
“It still feels really good,” he said. “It doesn’t go away as we go. It’s still pretty damn awesome. Maybe when we start racing we’ll stop thinking about it or thinking about what it means, but it’s been a ton of fun.”
Now begins the task of trying to repeat — or even improve upon — last year’s successes.
“It’s pretty crazy to look at the numbers, honestly,” Truex said. “It’s pretty ridiculous. It’s going to be tough to beat. It’s going to be tough to match that, for sure. I think we can do it. We’re up for that challenge. Really feel like we could have won 10 or 12 races if things would have gone a little different.
“I think our focus is starting the season off here, figure out where we’re at, go from there. I’ve got a lot of confidence in my team that we can still continue to do some great things. Certainly won’t be happy unless we do.”
Truex, 37, isn’t that far removed from working on his father’s clam boats in the Atlantic Ocean, a tough, messy task that might encourage anyone to go into auto racing — or many other jobs. Despite the highs and lows of a remarkable 2017 season, he remains the calm, cooperative driver who spent years climbing to the top of his sport.
Last year’s success hasn’t resulted in a new Lamborghini sitting in his driveway.
“For the most part, I honestly don’t feel a whole lot different,” Truex said. “I haven’t done anything different. I haven’t changed at all. I still like the same things and dislike the same things and do the same things. I haven’t bought anything extravagant.
“I’m sure going down the road that some things are going to change, but I don’t know what those are going to be yet. It’s been a lot of fun and, yeah, it really hasn’t changed me, but it’s maybe changed my life in some respects.”
Truex and the FRR team won the series title from a shop located about 1,600 miles from the NASCAR heartland in Charlotte. They took basic equipment built by fellow Toyota team members at Joe Gibbs Racing and tweaked and finetuned it and turned the season into one in which the rest of the world was chasing them.
“They did a lot of things on their own,” said Denny Hamlin, who drives for Gibbs. “It wasn’t like they were just rolling a car out of our shop and he’s getting on the track and racing with it. They spent their time and did their due diligence in Denver and made their cars better.”
Truex expects some of that advantage to carry over into the new season as he transitions from hunter to hunted.
“There’s a lot of stuff we keep close to the vest, and a lot of it is personnel and mind-sets and the way we work together,” he said. “The chemistry of our team, a lot of those things are parts and pieces of our success and part of why we feel like we’ve had an advantage.”