MARTIN TRUEX JR.
No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota
Texas Motor Speedway
CORNELIUS, N.C. — No. 56 Toyota driverMartin Truex Jr. and the NAPA Racing team are back on a roll after recording their second straight top-10 finish with a solid eighth-place run at Martinsville Speedway. The team owns 10 top-10s with three races remaining in 2011 — an improvement over last year’s tally of seven.
Scott Miller, MWR’s new executive vice president of competition, will serve as Truex’s interim crew chief for the remainder of the year. Miller began his duties at MWR this week. The No. 56 team will debut a new chassis Sunday at Texas.
Martin Truex Jr. on Miller Joining MWR: “He has some really good insight on how our company works and how we are improving our cars. He’s got some good ideas on how to help. At this point, this is a good time of year for us to start to prepare for next season. We have already started with building new parts and pieces. This weekend we are debuting a new chassis. The NAPA guys have put a tremendous amount of work in the new chassis. I think Scott is joining us at a really good time so he can get a feel for what our new car has to offer us right now and what work still needs to be done to fine tune it in the off season. I think joining us now is going to give him some good input on where we are and how we can get started on next year.”
Truex on Returning to Texas: “I think the key for this NAPA team at Texas is really this new chassis. We hope it has addressed the issues we’ve had at 1.5-mile tracks for the past year. There have been some issues that we fought that don’t seem to be related to actual car set up or the things we do throughout the race weekends. It seems to be more tied to how the cars are built and what we take to the track. Hopefully with all the engineering and the work that’s gone into this chassis, it will address the major issues we’ve been fighting and give us a better chance to get the car dialed in over the course of a normal race weekend. If this chassis performs the way I think it will, we’ve got a decent chance this weekend to turn in another good result.”
NOTES
· Sunday’s race marks Truex’s 223rd NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start. In 12 Cup starts at Texas, he has one pole, one top-five and two five-10 finishes. His average start is 19th and finish is 18th.
· Miller has served in several roles throughout his 16-year stint in NASCAR, most recently as director of competition at Richard Childress Racing. Miller has been a winning crew chief and has repeatedly guided teams into the Chase for the Sprint Cup from his management role.
· NAPA Racing will host Honorary Pit Crew Member Richard Bennett. He is the Service Manager at Frisco Automotive. Bennett will be honored in NAPA pre-race festivities and have his name decaled on the No. 56 NAPA Toyota.
· Check out NAPA Reserve Online. Visit www.napaonline.com to make shopping for an auto part easier. Order online and pick up at your favorite NAPA AUTO PARTS store.
