WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. has demonstrated the ability to win on a wide variety of venues.
Clearly, his superiority on 1.5-mile intermediate tracks can rightly be considered the primary strength of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team. But Truex also is adept at the road courses, as he recent record indicates.
Truex is the defending race winner at Watkins Glen International. He also won at Sonoma in June. And if Truex is first to the finish line in Sunday’s Go Bowling at the Glen (3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), he’ll be the first driver since Tony Stewart in 2004-2005 to win three straight road course events in the Cup series.
Does that qualify Truex as an elite road course driver? He’ll let others make that judgment.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be with a great team the past few years and to be able to take advantage of that,” Truex said. “They’ve given me great cars, and I feel like I’ve always been good at road courses. You look back in Xfinity Series days in Mexico (where he won in his only start in 2005), and things like that.
“I feel like we’ve always been strong on road courses, but now I feel like I have the team that gives me the capability of winning. So we’ve been winning. I don’t know how my name fits into that conversation. I guess you’d have to ask other people that.”
Truex acknowledges that winning three straight would be an important accomplishment.
“It means a lot to me, personally,” he said. “I think everyone in the garage… you want to be known in the garage as a driver that can win anywhere.
“Certainly, road courses are a unique set of circumstances. I think it’s an extra special feeling to be able to win at tracks that are completely different—like this.”
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
