Team owner Shigeaki Hattori confirmed to CATCHFENCE.com and Motorsport.com that Ryan Truex has been signed as the full-time driver of the No. 16 Toyota Tundra for Hattori Racing Enterprises this season, expanding his 15-race schedule from 2016.
Truex joined HRE after running just five NASCAR XFINITY Series events in 2015 for Biagi-DenBeste Racing. The partnership kicked off with a runner-up performance at Daytona International Speedway and followed through with three more top-10s throughout the season, including an eighth-place performance at Talladega Superspeedway this past October.
Truex will be reunited with Mike Greci, who will serve as the team’s new general manager, Hattori also confirmed. Greci and Truex enjoyed success together in the K&N Pro Series East in a driver-crew chief role winning back-to-back championships in 2009 and 2010.
Hattori said they will announce a crew chief soon.
Hattori added that sponsorship consisting of at least 10 partners would assume a rotation role on the truck and also would be announced soon.
Truex and HRE attempted to run the full season last year but the lack of sponsorship forced Truex to miss back-to-back races at Texas Motor Speedway and Iowa Speedway despite being sixth in points. The team returned at Gateway Motorsports Park, but reduced their schedule significantly thereafter leaving Truex 18th in series points.
Truex told Motorsport.com in 2016 that Hattori Racing Enterprises was the best team of his NASCAR career.
“This is probably the best team I’ve had in my career on the national level, really the only time I’ve had the chance to run the first quarter of a season and show what I can do,” Truex said this past June.
“I haven’t had a shot yet in my career to run full time in any of the national series for a championship. I felt like this was my best shot so far. I feel like I am going to keep getting shots like this.”
Truex, the brother of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Martin Truex Jr. has been struggling to find a solid home in one of NASCAR’s top three national divisions, but has refused to give up.
The Mayetta, New Jersey native is a two-time NASCAR K&N Pro Series East champion winning the title in 2009 and 2010 respectively driving for the defunct Michael Waltrip Racing as a High School student in Ocean County, N.J.
Carving a part-time path to the XFINITY Series in 2010, Truex remained a part-time staple in 2011 to 2013 before turning his attention to a limited Cup Series opportunity in 2013. That opportunity led to drive for another team at the sport’s pinnacle level the following year, but the relationship was dissolved by September.
After nine years in a previous Mooresville, N.C., shop next to Germain Racing, HRE recently relocated to a new facility in Lakeside Park, which once housed the Rusty Wallace Racing XFINITY Series program.
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