Toyota Racing – Martin Truex Jr.
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
AVONDALE, Ariz. (November 9, 2024) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Martin Truex Jr. was made available to the media on Saturday after winning the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway.
Martin Truex Jr. will close out his full-time Cup Series career on the pole in Sunday’s race. This is his second consecutive pole to close the season. It his third at Phoenix (2009, 2018) and 25th of his career.
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
How meaningful is this for you?
“It’s very cool. Honestly, you always want to be known as the guy that can go fast in any track, in any situation. Pressure is always pretty high for qualifying. You have to go out there and nail that perfect lap. You only get one shot at it these days. It is fun to go out there and beat everyone in anything. It feels good. It’s very cool, but the big prize is tomorrow. Hopefully, we can get that one.”
How have you allowed yourself to have the thoughts about a storybook win to close this out?
“Would you stop? (laughter) Just stop. I’m excited for tomorrow, that’s as far as I will get. I hope we can celebrate tomorrow after the race. That would make it all really, really cool. Not emotional at all. Excited, and looking forward to tomorrow.”
How long after the race in Martinsville did it take you and Joey Logano to mend a friendship?
“That is a tough question. This sport, you have people you have run-ins with. At some point in time, you just have to move on. Life goes on – things happen. It is racing. I’ve always had a ton of respect for Joey (Logano) off of the race track. He is a great guy. Does things the right way. Treats people right. All of the things that a good human being does. It took a little while on the race track obviously to get over that and understand and wrap your head around and forgive someone for running you over, but at the end of the day you have too. Life goes on. Joey has always been a class act off the track, and we’ve always had a decent relationship as far as that goes, just have had a few run-ins on the track, and you keep those in the back of your mind for certain situations, but it doesn’t make you dislike or hate someone. It’s just part of racing.”
Looking back on your early career, could have you ever thought you would end up here running as well as you did to end your 25-year pro career?
“Honestly, when I was doing that, I didn’t know what I was going to do after that. I just knew that I was going to race Saturday night and then I was going to drive an hour to Atlantic City after I parked my trailer and get on a clam boat. I wasn’t thinking about any of this. I’ll be honest, it never crossed my mind that I could race for a living until a few years into my Busch North experience where it started to kind of feel like there might be an opportunity for me to drive for someone someday. It was long, long after racing Wall Stadium.”
With this being your last full-time race, are you going to battle hard for the win?
“I don’t know. I hope I’m in that situation so we can find out. That’s all I’ll say. I hope it comes down to that. I don’t have any plans. I don’t have this thing in mind that if x, y, z happens, I’m going to do x, y, z. I will try to do the best I can tomorrow. Hopefully, we are in a good position to have a shot at winning. That would be great. Hypotheticals – I don’t really do very well with them. We are just going to go race and see what happens tomorrow.”
If you were to win tomorrow, would you call it a career?
“No. No, I still want to race some.”
Two poles in two weeks. Is there anything different about where the speed has come from?
“Not really, no I don’t think so. Just typically good tracks for us qualifying wise, I think last year we won the pole at Martinsville as well. We’ve always qualified well here. We were I think third in the spring and maybe we were really close. (William) Byron just edged us out in round two so I think it’s just a work in progress. We’re always looking at past races and trying to tweak on them and figure out how to get a little bit better. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just preparation based off of past success and continuing to build on that.”
How would you describe your relationship with Phoenix Raceway?
“Yeah, I definitely am comfortable. This is just a really difficult track to get your car doing just exactly what you want because both ends are so different. In ’21 we had a really good season here. We won the first race and obviously we were in the final four that year and came up a little short but had a winning car no question. It’s harder than ever I think to get the car dialed in here just because the ends are different. There’s no PJ1 sprayed anymore so there’s not really a whole lot you can do as far as like moving around the race track to find something that works for your car. Basically, it’s got to work on the bottom or around the apron somehow and it’s just hard to get both ends tied together.”
Where did being a ‘gentlemen driver’ and racing others fair come from?
“I would say it’s somewhat probably my personality to not want to make people upset or angry I guess, but also growing up working on my own cars. No question that I had to fix stuff I bent up, so I was building race cars when I was 18 straight out of school. I was fixing my cars, building body parts, building you name it and when I bent them up, I had to fix them and most of the time I’d pay for it too. I think it’s a little bit different mentality when you grow up racing that way.”
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