DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—Martin Truex Jr., erased the disappointment of missing the Playoffs in 2022 by winning the NASCAR Cup regular season title one year later.
Truex didn’t have a dismal season during the introduction of the Next Gen car last year. He was sixth in points entering the regular season finale. But without a victory tallied by the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team—and 16 different winners including Austin Dillon at Daytona last August, Truex was bumped from the postseason.
After Truex went winless—for the first time since 2014—the crew regrouped. For 10 of the last 11 weeks, Truex has topped the standings. His Stage 1 win and 24th-place finish in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 elevated his points lead over Denny Hamlin by 48 points after the smoke cleared on Saturday night.
“It feels great,” Hamlin said. “Obviously, at the beginning of the year you set out to be the best. For the regular season championship, it’s a huge deal, the 15 (Playoff) points that come along with it, are very, very important for the Playoffs.
“Just really proud of my team. Thankful to turn it around from last year, missing the Playoffs, to being here tonight is a big deal for all of us. Thankful to all our partners and everybody that makes this happen. Hopefully we can keep this going throughout the Playoffs.”
The 2017 champion has claimed 32 of his 34 Cup wins with Toyota. He scored victories at Dover Motor Speedway, Sonoma Raceway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway en route to the regular season title.
Under the direction of crew chief James Small, Truex has completed 99.7 percent of all laps raced. His consistency has made the 43-year-old racer a contender in the Championship 4 in five of the last eight seasons.
On Saturday night, Truex stuck with the plan. After pitting on Lap 81, he was fortunate enough to be near the rear of the field when a 12-car melee broke out in Turn 4.
“Early on we kind of tried to do all we could to stay at the front,” Truex said. “I was fortunate enough to have our teammates around us and be able to get the stage one win. That was a big deal.
“As soon as the 11 (Denny Hamlin’s) car had his issue in stage two, we kind of got shuffled back a little bit, I felt like I was in a really bad spot. I decided to bail. Luckily I did because huge pileup a few laps later.”
Truex, who has won on every type of track except a superspeedway, had hope to receive the green light for the final run—but the team thought it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Didn’t really get to race the way I wanted to once we kind of got in that position,” Truex said. “The 11 was a lap down. We just kind of had to be smart about it. It wasn’t a whole lot of fun, but we had to do what we had to do.
“We definitely raced different than we would have, had the 11 not had his issues.”
Considering where the No. 19 team was at this time last year, Truex admits it was a group effort to return to contender status.
“No question,” Truex said. “I think the 19 team, not only that, but everybody at JGR, TRD, Toyota, just as a whole, as a group, we’ve won a lot more races this year, had a lot more speed across the board with all of our cars.
“For me, just my guys, really buckling down, like you said, finding things that I need, finding things that stuck out that we could work on for me, has been a huge help.”
With wins at six of the next 10 tracks, Truex is ready to battle the competition in the Playoffs.
“It’s fun to go to the track and know they’re going to give me something I can go out and win with almost every single weekend,” Truex said. “We didn’t have that last year. It’s a lot of fun to race that way. We’ve got it right now. Hopefully we can have it for 10 more weeks and go out on top here.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
