Martin Truex Jr., driver of the #78 Furniture Row Chevrolet, practices for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Cheez-It 355 at Watkins Glen International on August 8, 2014 Photo – Mark Wilson/Getty Images
‘What a difference a year makes’ is a phrase that rings so true for NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Martin Truex Jr. Last year the driver was on his way to making the Chase for Michael Waltrip Racing, a big deal for his team and sponsor, NAPA. But all of that changed by the end of the 2013 Richmond race in September. With controversy swirling over incidents involving his teammates during the race, penalties from NASCAR followed and ultimately the loss of sponsorship by NAPA. By the end of the season, without funds to continue at Michael Waltrip Racing, Truex was left seeking a new team and sponsor. He landed at Furniture Row – a Colorado based and single-car team – in the No. 78.
To say this season is a disappointment for Truex and his team is a bit of an understatement, considering all that Truex has been through leading up to his change of team. But this weekend at Watkins Glen International may give the No. 78 team some reason for confidence. Truex won at Sonoma – another road course – last season and Watkins Glen is a track at which the No. 78 team and Truex have had some success.
“It’s definitely a big weekend for our team,” said Truex. Obviously it’s not been the season that we had hoped it would be, and definitely not sitting where we’d like to be in points. But we felt like Watkins Glen would be a good place for us to kind of put in a little bit of extra effort. We decided to go out there and test just a few weeks ago and try to improve our chances because that’s been a good track for me and also the team has been good on road courses in the past, too.”
“Decided to go test there and try to put a little bit of extra effort in for this race, and hopefully it’ll go well for us and we can run up front and hopefully have a shot at getting in a first win at Watkins Glen.”
At Watkins Glen, Truex has three top-fives and five top-tens with an average finish of 12.4. The No. 78 team plans to improve on that this weekend with testing at the track and the extra effort they’ve given with high hopes of turning their season around and understanding this is their best chance. Why Watkins Glen?
Photo – Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
“…first of all I enjoy the road courses,” said Truex. “Going back to when I first started racing in go-karts, I ran road courses. I ran on road courses in the K&N Series back when I drove those, and it was just something I looked forward to every year and still do to this day.”
“But when you get to this level, you’ve got to have great cars, you’ve got to have great equipment, you’ve got to have great teams. There’s so much that goes into being a good road course driver or having a good car on a road course. It takes a lot of things. I’ve been fortunate over the years to have good race cars and teams that understand road racing, and obviously have enjoyed it and have had decent success at it. Definitely looking forward to this weekend. I think it’ll be a chance for us for sure to have a good run and hopefully turn things around because it’s been pretty rough lately. Hopefully it’ll go well, and I’m looking forward to it.”
With all of that in mind, Truex is realistic about what a win could mean to his team. It might be easy to see it as the way to make the Chase, but for the No. 78 team, a win at Watkins Glen would mean more than making the Chase.
“I think obviously the emphasis is on winning with the new system, and honestly, you don’t want to just luck into winning a race and make the Chase and be out in the first four weeks,” says Truex. “The guys that get in there, they want to be competitive. They want to go after a championship. And at this point for us, we’re not there yet as a team. We’re not where we need to be.”
“I think for us, it’s not really just about trying to go out and sneak out a win to make the Chase. It’s about going out and getting a win to boost our confidence as a team, to move us forward, to help us think, okay, we’re making progress. At the end of the day, we all want to win races, and if we would be able to do that, I think that would be bigger just to win than it would be winning just to make the Chase. You don’t want to just make the Chase to get knocked out in the first four rounds. We’re just racing each week, taking each week like it’s a new week and going out there and trying to do the best job we can and move our team forward.”
Fans remember the 2011 season, when Tony Stewart went without a win in the season’s first 26 races, then went on to win five of ten Chase races and eventually his third championship. Truex and his team are looking for what it takes to find success in the Chase, should he win this weekend.
“I think everybody looks at what happened that year and says, how in the world did that happen, because let’s be honest, it’s never happened — nothing like that has ever happened, and most likely won’t happen again like that. That was a crazy deal how that all worked out,” says Truex.
“But yeah, I think everybody is trying to figure out how do we take that next step, because it’s so competitive. We’re not talking about you’ve got to change your whole team and you’ve got to build all new cars and this and that. I mean, you find two tenths, all of a sudden you’re going from 20th to running in the top-five. It’s so competitive nowadays. You’ve just got to find those little things that can make a difference for your team and carry those through each and every single weekend.”
“We’re not far, but we’ve got to find those little things, and that’s what we’re focusing on…”
So when it comes down to the last lap at Watkins Glen this weekend, and if he’s running second with a chance to win or earn points by finishing in second…Truex makes his intentions very clear by saying…
“Any time you can see the lead, you’re going after it. It doesn’t matter what the situation is.”
That’s good news for his No. 78 team, because beyond Watkins Glen, they have four more chances to go for another win, before the 2014 Chase begins!