NFL PLAYERS WEAR CLEATS FOR A CAUSE
Jets inside linebacker Demario Davis works on shoes he will wear during the NFL’s “My Cleats, My Cause” campaign. Players will be allowed to wear customized cleats during Week 13 games Thursday through Monday.
LAS VEGAS – Martin Truex Jr. will be celebrated here this week as the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion from New Jersey.
He is from Mayetta, a small community near the Atlantic Ocean. It’s what Truex calls the “good part” of New Jersey, somewhat isolated in the east-central part of the state but close enough (60 miles) to Philadelphia to make him a devoted Eagles fan.
Truex also grew up close enough to the ocean to become all too familiar with the erratic nature of the Atlantic, in large part because, as a teenager, he got to experience it directly. Truex worked on clam boats owned by his father, whose seafood company, based in Maryland, puts dozens of boats onto the Atlantic during the season.
Truex spent too much time afloat. His adjectives for clamming: Dirty. Stinky. Cold. Sweaty.
None of those will apply Thursday night when Truex steps to the stage at Wynn Hotel/Casino to accept NASCAR’s biggest prize. It’s the finish to a remarkable story and, in these days of one bad professional sports story after another, an inspirational one. Truex succeeded in his early years in NASCAR but eventually reached a point of nearno return.
The sport’s new champion was nearly one of its outcasts.
After winning the Xfinity Series championship in 2004 and 2005, Truex scored his first Cup victory in 2007, but the next five seasons produced no wins. He returned to victory lane in 2013 with Michael Waltrip Racing, but that positive turned into a major downer in Sep- tember of that year as MWR tried to manipulate the finish of a race at Richmond with the intent of impacting the makeup of the playoff field.
The MWR plan dissolved into scandal, and the deception resulted in Truex being removed from the playoff field and NAPA pulling its rich sponsorship from MWR, eventually leading to the team’s demise.
Truex could have been on the ropes, or worse, but he got a glimpse of daylight when Kurt Busch left the Furniture Row Racing team, creating a vacancy team owner Barney Visser filled with Truex for 2014.
There was no grand entrance, as Truex went winless in that first season, posting an unimpressive laps-led total of one. That’s right, one.
But the team produced its first win with Truex in 2015, and the next year brought four victories and a circuitleading laps-led total of 1,809.
Then came the magic of this season, Truex fighting through an imposing line of obstacles to win eight times, the last victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway giving him his first championship.
For those who thought Truex and his team might stumble in the face of moreexperienced competition in the playoffs, they instead intensified the fire. His average finish across the 10 playoff races was 4.3. Remove the Talladega Superspeedway race, in which he was involved in a multicar crash, and his average finish rises to 2.2. Virtually unbeatable.
After winning the title in the season finale in South Florida, Truex flew to New York City for the traditional media blitz that awaits the champion, then he escaped to the Florida Keys to fish with friends. Next came a Monday visit to Denver, where the Furniture Row team is based, for a media appearance.
Truex arrived in the desert Monday night, ready for his title to be cheered, cataloged and saluted in numerous ways along the Las Vegas Strip. He and other NASCAR series champions met fans and signed autographs Tuesday. Wednesday will be highlighted by the annual “Victory Lap,” as drivers parade their race cars along Las Vegas Boulevard.
The Champion’s Week featured event will be Thursday’s awards banquet at The Wynn, where Truex and his team will be honored.
“Dream come true,” Truex said. “I mean, it’s just as good as it gets. The biggest, most happy word in the world, that’s what it is. I don’t know what that — what is that word? Somebody got a dictionary? It’s just unbelievable. Unbelievable.”