Furniture Row Racing driver Martin Truex Jr. was made available to the media at Talladega Superspeedway:
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
What do you think this weekend holds for you?
“Hopefully about two foot in front of the second-place guy at the finish line, so definitely looking forward to the weekend obviously. It’s always exciting to come here to Talladega and feel good about we brought the same race car we had at Daytona, so it should be fast and look forward to go out there and go racing and have some fun and hopefully be around at the end. I think if we can get to the end which is usually the most difficult part of this race, we’ll have a shot at it, so looking forward to it.”
What goes into prepping a race car that previously competed in a race?
“It’s a good question. I think it differs depending on the race tracks. I think for restrictor plate cars, I would say there’s probably less change based on the fact that we’ve had the same rules package at the restrictor plate tracks for a couple of years now and so there’s not a whole lot of gains to be found in wind tunnel, things like that, so it’s really just about taking the thing apart, rebuilding it again for another 500-mile race. I don’t think – I really don’t think they’ve spent a ton of time on it. Most teams focus on where we race the most, which is downforce tracks and short tracks, so I would say it’s real similar to what we had at Daytona – just rebuilt, new engine and ready to go for 500 miles.”
Will the Toyota teams work together this weekend?
“Hopefully, it worked out pretty good, so I think that there’d be a lot of other teams trying to pull off the same thing, so we’ll just have to see, but our cars were all really fast and the drivers all did a really good job of working together. It takes full commitment and 100 percent from all the guys in our camp to be able to do what we did at Daytona. It was really neat for me to be a part of that – that was our first race at Furniture Row with Toyota and with the JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) alliance and the way that worked for us was just awesome and it was really neat to be a part of that and to see the teamwork and everybody really working together throughout all Speedweeks and especially in the 500. I think if we can make it work and we obviously all get in that position, I think we’ll try to make it work, but there’s no guarantees that it will work as well this time – different race track, you know? Typically there’s three or four grooves of racing here where at Daytona it’s usually two or three, so it’s a little bit different, but hopefully we’ll be able to make it work if we can.”
Do drivers have more control at restrictor plate tracks now?
“Yeah, for sure I think it’s always been – the drivers always played a big role in these races just because of decisions you have to make and certainly you have to have a fast race car. That’s always a big part of what we do and you’ve just got to have that good combination, but it’s – the crapshoot part of it really is just if you ever get shuffled out at the wrong time and the big wreck happens and you’re in it, there’s nothing you can really do about that. We see guys ride around the back all day trying to miss it. We see guys that say, ‘Hey, I’m going to try to stay up front all day and hope that it’s behind me.’ That’s really the crapshoot part of it, but to win these races consistently, you have to have a fast car and you have to have really good skills at drafting. We’ve seen Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. over the years just really show everybody how it’s done and that’s because he has a really good understanding of the air, the way it works and knowing how to use that to his advantage. For me, it’s been kind of – I’ve kind of had good races and bad and lately I feel like I’ve learned a lot more and gotten better at it, but there’s still a lot to learn, so looking forward to this weekend and hopefully learning more and just making the right decisions at the end because that’s when it’s more important.”
Is there a balance you have to strike when expressing your opinion?
“Yeah, it’s definitely a balance and you have to be smart about the way you word things I guess. I think at the end of the day, the most important thing is we’re all in this for the same thing and if you have an opinion, the best way obviously and what NASCAR wants from us is to go to them first and express our displeasure with them and try to come up with a solution without bad mouthing them in the media, so I don’t have a problem with that at all. I think some guys are definitely a little bit unclear on what they can and can’t say, but at the end of the day if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all. If you have something bad to say, go to NASCAR and talk to them about it. I’ve never really had any trouble with that, so I’m not really too worried about it.”
Did your mom almost end your racing career after an early accident?
“So when I was a kid when I started racing go-karts, my dad (Martin Truex. Sr.) was racing as well, so a lot of the weekends when I was racing and at the race track, my mom would take me. She was pretty nervous about it at first obviously – 10 and 11 year old kid and she’s like, ‘I don’t want you to do this,’ and we’re racing go-karts – a bunch of kids just being crazy. It was one of the first weekends I’d raced – I’d probably only ran four or five races and somehow somebody had hit me in the back and ended up on top of me basically. The kart was sitting on my head and that was – she was pretty freaked out by it. I’m like, ‘Mom, it’s okay. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Look at me.’ She’s like – she was a mess. It was almost the end, but luckily she let me keep going.”
How would you asses the new racing package?
“Well I think the biggest thing I’ve noticed is just the ability to race well in traffic, the ability to run fast behind a car. If you run a guy down, you don’t hit that wall three or four cars back and just can’t go as fast as you were going before. It gives you a lot more options in traffic, a lot more passing going on and a few years ago when we had a really lot of downforce when they dropped the green flag for the race and if you were mid-pack, you were out of control and you couldn’t go anywhere and I’ve seen a lot less of that. Obviously, the tires are a big, big part of what we’re doing with the low downforce with the tires wearing out and the car slowing down as the run goes on, it’s really opened up a lot of opportunities. We’ve seen some of the races where guys that maybe aren’t some of the fastest cars or don’t have really good speed throughout the weekend all the sudden 15, 20 laps in a run, they start coming to the front because their cars handle well, so it’s just given guys a lot more opportunities to pass and to make the racing exciting. I feel like it’s been a lot more fun to drive the cars, it’s been a lot more fun to race with people, moving around, finding new grooves and I thought just look at what we’ve seen at Richmond last weekend. That was the first time in years that we’ve run anywhere except for the bottom, you know? We ran all over the track and that’s just highly unlikely for Richmond typically, so I think it’s been really good. I feel like the races have been exciting and a lot more fun than past years and I think they will just continue to get better as we take downforce off and make then tires softer yet.”
