Toyota Racing – Martin Truex Jr.
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Sonoma Raceway – June 21, 2019
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Martin Truex Jr. was made available to the media in Sonoma:
Martin Truex Jr., No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Did you ever doubt that NASCAR would ever disqualify someone? Does that send a message to the garage?
“I really never thought about it. If they are going to take a win away, it’s pretty big. Yeah, they said they were going to do it and they did it. I am not surprised.”
You and Cole Pearn (crew chief) really figured out the playoff points and the stage wins when they got added to the point system. Now that everyone has figure it out, is your advantage gone?
“I think everyone knew it was a good deal. It happened to be the first year they brought in the playoff points we were really strong. Honestly, it was consequential. Everybody is always after those points. Even before those, you want to win practice, you want to get the pole, you wanted to be first all the time. At this level, that is what you are looking to do. We didn’t have any magical plan or special secret deal going on; we were just really fast that season.
Martin, you had the fastest speeds in the morning session. The carousel didn’t really affect you?
“It took a little getting used to. The only thing I did in preparation of coming here was to go to the simulator a little bit. You only get so much out of that. All the visual cues are there, but you don’t have the feel, the sensation of speed, the g-forces, the rises and the falls, all of that. So to go out there, cold turkey this morning, it was a little bit weird. It was a little bit hairy. I was trying to figure it out, and the track was a little dirty. It took a while to get it figured out, but once we were done with practice, I was really comfortable with the track. With the changes we made to my car, I am looking forward to hopefully laying down a good qualifying lap tomorrow.”
Compare the first practice to the second practice.
“Conditions here, the track is pretty sensitive. The biggest deal here is every time we show up here, we are the first cars on track. The track is really dirty. We fought that for quite a while. We saw the speeds pick up a lot in the second practice. The race starts a little earlier on Sunday than we ran that second practice today. But that is probably the best gauge on what we are going to have.”
Did you learn anything more about the carousel today?
“We definitely learned a lot about it. I’d never been on it so it was quite a learning experience for me. As far as the race being shorter, I think we let the crew chiefs worry about all that strategy stuff and the engineers. There’s less laps and it’s a longer course. I don’t know how that plays into the fuel strategy, pit strategy and how you’ll have to run this race. We’ve been doing the same thing here for a long time and it’s always do you do one stop that last stage or two stop it because tires are faster. Tires wear out here so I leave that all completely to the crew. I’m glad we were able to come here, figure out the track, figure out the race car and how to adapt our setup that we’ve been running here the last couple seasons over to the new turns and definitely felt like it worked out pretty well for us.”
Is Chicago the type of track that his package favors?
“I would say yes for me personally, I like the hot, slick tracks that we go to. It seems to be best for us. I’m hoping it’s not as hot as last year. Every time I think about Chicago, I think, ‘Gosh, that’s the hottest race car I’ve ever been in my entire life.’ I really don’t want to do that again so let’s hope it’s now quite as hot. I think it feels like to me or at least the races I’ve enjoyed the most or have put on the best show are the tracks where you can run all over them, where tires wear out and all that stuff. Some people disagree with me and my theory of what’s good racing and everybody has a little different opinion of what is good racing. I think it’s going to be a great place for us to put on a good show and hopefully it’s not 120 degrees.”
Are you concerned that your average starting spot isn’t in the top-10 this season?
“It’s kind of concerning, but not really at the same time. We know it’s there and we really don’t know how to fix it is what I’m saying. With the rules that we have and the impound and qualifying procedure, you kind of have to qualify what you’re going to race. You’re main goal is to race well and you just take qualifying as it comes. Well, we’re off a little bit – so be it. We just do whatever we have to do to race good and that’s hurt us a little bit in qualifying.”
Do you have a good notebook on intermediates with this package going into Chicago?
“No question for us, especially on the 19. I think JGR, all of our cars are running good at places throughout the season, but for us personally on the 19 the last couple mile-and-a-halves, we’ve really turned a corner. Michigan was a great run for us, Charlotte obviously, winning there was big. We started out the year kind of searching a bit on the mile-and-a-halves and the bigger tracks with the 550 package. For us, I definitely feel like we’ve learned a lot the past month and a half or so and really turned a corner there. Given us a lot of confidence and we feel like Chicago will be a good race for us.”
How do you expect to handle in Daytona?
“Daytona will be really interesting. I believe as with every other track we’ve been to with this 550 package this year, there are a lot of unknowns because we’ve never done it and they’re all so different. It’s really just, there’s a lot of question marks. We know what we know from Talladega because we ran that there and that will give you an idea of where to start. We’ve been surprised every time we went to a track with this package. We’re just trying to figure it out and I just leave it up to the engineers and the crew chiefs and all that. When we get to the track, I try to give them all the info I can give them. I think we’ll be surprised and if it’s really hot like normal in Daytona, that track just keeps getting older and older and older every time we go back and losing grip. How is that going to play into it with 550 horsepower, which is going to be a lot more than we’ve ever had there.”
