LAS VEGAS, Nev – Martin Truex Jr’s extremely strong start to the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season continued Sunday with a second place finish in the Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway.
It was Truex’s second best finish driving the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet and just his second top-five finish with the Denver, Colorado based team. Last October, Truex delivered a
fourth-place result at Kansas Speedway.
“Honestly just another solid weekend really in general,” said Truex. “Just had a good day on Friday, practiced well yesterday, felt good about the car going into today, and just had another solid day, no mistakes, no bad luck, fast race car. And the biggest thing, I guess, I was proud of today or took away from it was we were off a little bit at the beginning of the race and worked on it all day long, continued to get better, and at the end of the day we were the best we’ve been all day.
“That’s what you like to see out of your team, you like to finish strong, and all in all just really proud of the guys for giving me a fast race car all weekend long, giving me a fast race car each weekend this year really. Got a lot of momentum on our side right now, and hopefully we can keep building on that, build some more momentum, and hopefully be able to catch that 4 car in a couple of weeks.”
Truex’s momentum from a superb runner-up outing in the Sprint Unlimited at Daytona carried over to an eighth place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500. A week later, Truex upped the ante with a sixth place finish at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway.
Now, three races into the season, Truex has three consecutive top-10 finishes, the first time he’s accomplished that since 2013 at Michael Waltrip Racing. The single-car operation from the Midwest is also honing the same type of weekly performance it had with Kurt Busch in 2013.
Last season, the team carried just five top-10 finishes in 2014 and started off the season with a 43rd, 22nd and 14th. Fast forward nearly 12 months later, the organization has flipped a switch.
New leadership from the FRR team in crew chief Cole Pearn has undoubtedly accelerated the team’s potential. And his communication with Truex seems spot on.
Signs of life were given from the struggling team towards the end of last season. But they weren’t ready to put a period there. There was more to be done. Actually, plenty.
Spending the off-season seeking out their weaknesses and finding a solution to them has paid off to the strongest start for the Barney Visser-owned team ever.
“Last year there was days where it was just really hard to even think about racing because it was so miserable,” added Truex. “But I think at the end of the day, I’m proud of our guys for sticking behind me. I think that there was never a time where I quit on them. I never gave up on them. We worked hard all year long, and we definitely started to see some light at the end of the tunnel at the end of the season, and that was a good thing.
“That really is what spurred on the you know, the performance that we have now, because we started to understand things. Things started to make sense, and we had a plan at the end of the season of how we were going to go about doing this, trying to get this team turned around.”
With a superspeedway and two mile and a half tracks in the books, the circuit heads to Phoenix (Ariz.) International Raceway next weekend where the team finished 22nd and 12th respectively.
But don’t let those mediocre efforts fool you.
Momentum is everything in this sport. But attitude is a close second.
Right now, Martin Truex has a good reflection on his life and his career.
Without a doubt, the personal struggles with girlfriend Sherry Pollex being diagnosed with cancer last year could affect anyone, but persevering through those bad times has been made Truex a better person, but maybe, just maybe a better driver too.
Leaving Las Vegas, Truex sits fourth in the championship standings, just 16 points behind leader Kevin Harvick.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
