DENVER (April 30, 2014) – Coming off his best finish of the season, Martin Truex Jr. feels his Furniture Row Racing team is prepared for more success in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
“After what we’ve been through finishing 10th in Richmond felt good,” said Truex. “I feel we’re in position as a team to continue the momentum.”
But the Furniture Row Racing driver is also aware that the next stop – The Aaron’s 499 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway — has a history of curtailing strong performances with predictable regularity.
“At the last superspeedway race I felt I had my best opportunity of winning the Daytona 500. That’s how good our Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet was. Unfortunately we didn’t get to showcase our strength due to an oil pump failure.”
Though Truex is upbeat about Talladega, he knows that Daytona and the Alabama track have different personalities.
“When you go to Talladega it’s a whole new can of worms compared to Daytona because the track is so much wider,” explained Truex. There are more options as far as cars moving around at Talladega.
“Typically, Daytona is a two-wide, sometimes three-wide track where as Talladega is three-wide all the time and sometimes even four-or-five wide. There’s always a lot of side drafting going on at Talladega, these cars are very sensitive to that. The best choice of lane at Daytona is not necessary the best choice of lane at Talladega.”
While Truex has had his upsides at Talladega with six top-10s, including two at last year’s races (7th & 8th), he, like many other competitors, has also had downsides at the 2.66-mile oval. He has not finished in 50 percent of the races (nine) and of those nine races seven were a result of an accident.
“You know there’s a good chance you’re going to crash at Talladega,” stated Truex. “That’s the way it is and that’s the way it’s always been. There’s not really a whole lot of point thinking about it too much.”
