Toyota Racing – Martin Truex Jr.
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Charlotte Motor Speedway – September 28, 2018
Furniture Row Racing driver Martin Truex Jr. was made available to the media at Charlotte Motor Speedway:
MARTIN TRUEX JR, No. 78 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry, Furniture Row Racing
How wild was first practice today at the Roval?
“It wasn’t that bad actually. We only made three laps. The car is in one piece. We knocked zero fenders off. We destroyed zero splitters. It was pretty uneventful. It was good. There’s definitely a lot of chance for it to get crazy. The hard part is that you’re on a road course, we’re on a hard tire and you want to push – typically road courses you’re always pushing for that last inch or two or a foot in the braking zones and now you know if you get that extra foot and it’s too much, you’re going to be off the track somewhere. Trying to weigh the risk versus reward as the laps go by and so far so good for us. Not so great for some others.”
How much risk will you take in qualifying knowing that track position will be crucial in the race?
“We’ll definitely step it up for sure. In practice I was hoping to make a second run. We only ran on one set of tires our first two runs and we got out there with a minute to go and ran out of time, so I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t get out there and try to push a little harder and find some more time. Qualifying, I think it’s going to get a lot faster just because the guys are going to take more of each curb in each corner and push the limits, so we’ll see how we can deal with that.”
Do you expect to knock a fender off or hit something on Sunday?
“No. I expect not to. My team expects me not to, I’ll say that.”
How likely are you to not hit something?
“It’s doable. I feel okay about the track. Like I said, it’s different than what we tested because of the tires and also a lot of the mental cues are different because they painted everything and the walls are in different spots and so everything just looks different. Trying to find those markers in my head, obviously I only made three laps, so I’m far from getting it figured out, but I feel like we can go out there and race and have a good time and see what we come up with.”
What are you feelings about uncontrolled tire penalties?
“I completely agree with Cole’s (Pearn, crew chief) tweet from last week. How’s that? I feel like if they stay in the box, what’s the big deal? I think our fans want to see hard racing. They want to see the guys that are up front battling, not going to the rear once every two or three weeks for a tire sitting there with a guy that’s a foot too far away from it. I don’t agree with it. I think we should look at it, but I don’t make the rules.”
Do you have any Hot Wheels memories or favorite cars?
“I have a lot of them. I don’t know if I had a favorite, but as a kid that loved racing, I had all kinds of Hot Wheels cars and things like that.”
This is the 25th anniversary of the NASCAR Racing Papyrus PC game. Your brother, Ryan, said at one point he logged on as you and crashed the whole field. Do you have memories of the game and playing with your brother?
“Absolutely. I remember the first time that came out is was so revolutionary for us guys that liked to race. I was already I believe racing go karts at the time, so for me wanting to be a driver and all that, it was like super realistic. It was really cool to be able to play that game. I spent a lot of time on there for sure. It was a few years later, actually, that my brother did that because he was quite a bit younger than me. Took a while actually before I even knew he did it and it was very nice of him.”
During the test you had limited comments about the track, but you’ve opened up more about the Roval now. Is that by choice knowing that you have to race or have you come to embrace the track?
“It’s probably half and half. Knowing that we have to race here, positive mental attitude certainly helps as a driver to be successful I think in having the right approach. But also the track has changed a lot since the first time we came here. The tires have gotten better consistently as we’ve went through that process. Honestly, that first day we came here, I was one of the guys that did the very first test. The track was completely different than it is now and there was just no curbs, there was no walls. It was like you were driving through a parking lot trying to figure out lines through cones, so it was really difficult to get a feel for things. Since, there’s been so many upgrades and improvements and a lot of work done in the infield especially. You almost feel like you’re at a totally different track now. I think part of it is that as well. Marcus (Smith) and everyone here has really put a lot of effort into this and here we are to race, so we’ll try to make the best of it and hopefully have a good weekend.”
It seems like the exit of that backstretch chicane is where a lot of guys got in trouble. Is that the area of the track where you have to measure risk versus reward the most?
“Surely there’s a lot of risk there with that tire wall being there. Again, the track is different so when we tested here, there was no tire wall there and we were a whole car width to the left coming out of that chicane compared to where we are today. It’s just trying to figure out those new walls and things and where they’re at. Obviously, it effects how you can drive the car. That’s definitely one of the tricky spots because it’s so fast and a little slick there because your plan is to come out of that chicane and be as close to that tire wall as you can be because that’s where the speed is. If you get in the middle of that chicane and all of a sudden the back of the car steps out a little bit, which we’ve seen a couple of guys do today, you’ve got to catch it. You find your left-front tire in that tire wall. Just not a lot of room for error. You got to kind of creep up on it.”
What are your favorite and least favorite parts of the track?
“I don’t like the back chicane. That’s not my favorite part of the track. I’ll say that. My favorite part – I like the infield because it feels like a road course. There are actual turns. It’s not part of an oval track or anything. The infield is pretty cool. It’s just slick.”
How physically tough is this track on these cars and tell me about the challenge of the start or restarts in the race?
“As far as the first question with how hard is the track on the cars, it’s really just those blue curbs. We’ve seen a few guys really hit them hard there in the first practice and tear up some stuff, so you kind of have to stay off those. You can use the blue one a little bit there on the frontstretch chicane, but it’s those curbs that are really really tough on the car because they’re so tall. It’s a lot of force on the tires that you hit them with. Aside from that, I’d say it’s really not bad at all. The blue things are pretty pretty tough. Restarts, I think that’s probably where most of the questions lie is restarts and traffic. How do we navigate the place? Can we go two wide? Where can we go two wide? How’s that all going to play out? That’ll be the interesting part. In Turn 1 specifically – Turns 1 and 2, the walls on both sides are really narrow. Kind of a difficult spot on the race track, so we’ll just – I don’t know. I don’t really know how to answer your question there. Everybody is anxiously anticipating what’ll happen there and hopefully we can figure out a way to make it through there.”
Dover and Kansas are two of your best race tracks in the next round. What do you make of the next round and some of the challenges you’ll face next week at Dover?
“Definitely looking forward to it. A couple of good tracks for us and Talladega, so we’ll see. Hopefully we can do what we did the first round and have two really good first races and not have to worry about it. I feel like Dover and Kansas are both places we can go and win at. Our team has done a really good job of being prepared and showing up to the track ready. I feel like the first two races of the playoffs we were in position to win and we were doing all of the right things. We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing and hopefully win a race in the next round.”
Do you have any nicknames for the turns yet?
“I’m still trying to figure out the numbers, so nicknames may come later. I think the track named some of them. I don’t see it on their map here, I’m looking at it, but I know that Turn 1 was heartburn turn. I don’t know what the rest of them are called.”
Where is going to be the best place to pass on the track and where would you have to be absolutely crazy to try and make a pass?
“My first thought is that coming out of Turn 8, where you come out onto Turn 1 of the oval track – I think that corner is pretty tough. It’s slick and it’s really really important to get off that corner well because you go so far running wide open. I feel like that’ll probably be the number one passing zone if you can get under a guy coming out of there, they’re going to have to let you go when you get to the chicane on the backstretch. There’s no possible way. I don’t think we can go through there two wide, so I would say that coming out of (Turn) 8 is probably the first spot that comes to mind. And possibly coming out of (Turn) 17 onto the frontstretch start/finish line looks like a pretty decent spot as well because it’s really hard to get the power down out of 17 on the front straight. Especially on old tires, I feel like guys would be able to make moves there.”
What is the single biggest difference on the track since testing that they’ve made and why has that been such a challenging adjustment?
“The chicane on the backstretch is the biggest deal. I mean it’s the fastest part of the track. For the speed and how narrow it is, that’s the big one. It’s been configured differently every time I’ve been on it and of course here this weekend it’s a lot different. In my mind it’s the easiest place to screw up because there’s so much speed to be gained to go through there but yet we’ve seen what can happen if you miss it by a few inches as those guys did today. Very risky.”
How does the fact that you’re already locked into the next round affect your opinion of this race track an can you sympathize with the guys on the bubble with all the unknowns?
“It really doesn’t change my opinion of the track itself. It changes my outlook for the weekend I would say quite a bit. I wasn’t nervous this week. Pretty carefree and feeling like it’s a race that we’d like to come in here and win. Nothing to really worry about. Obviously, we want to do well. We want to get some bonus points if we can. That’s the name of the game right now. It’ll be fun. It’s definitely more fun than coming here like some of those guys – I can’t imagine what they’re thinking right now and how nervous they are about it, but once we all get there, it’s a race and you got to figure it out. From that standpoint, looking forward to the challenge.”
Have you given your girlfriend, Sherry, any tips on driving the pace car on Sunday yet?
“I just basically told her to just stay on the track. Sounds easy right? I heard a pace car spun out recently, is that true? This morning? So it is possible. So I just told her to stay on the track, stay off the curbs and stay off the brakes. We’ll see how it goes. It’s going to be really fun to just see her do that. Hopefully we’ll get the pole so on the pace lap I can give her a little tap. Maybe a little bump, a fender rub or something. That would be really cool.”
