Despite finishing 24th in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, which served as the final regular-season event of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, Martin Truex Jr. clinched the 2023 Cup Series Regular Season Championship on Saturday, August 26.
The 2017 Cup Series champion from Mayetta, New Jersey, came into the regular-season finale with a 39-point advantage over teammate Denny Hamlin and 76 over William Byron. Rolling off the starting grid in 13th place, Truex methodically carved his way to the front amid the draft and was battling amongst his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates in the closing laps of the first stage period. Then on the final lap of the first stage period, Truex was able to outmaneuver teammate Denny Hamlin through the backstretch and with drafting help from teammate Christopher Bell stormed to the lead and captured his sixth stage victory of the 2023 season along with an extra 10 stage points.
Despite finishing outside the top 10 at the conclusion of the second stage period that was mired with a multi-car wreck, Truex was able to clinch the regular-season title while Hamlin was involved in the wreck. After cracking the top 10 midway into the final stage, Truex ended up getting shuffled towards the middle of the pack, where he would remain for the rest of the event and survived an overtime restart to nurse his No. 19 Bass Pro Shops/Ducks Unlimited Toyota TRD Camry across the finish line in 24th place, which was enough for him to wrap up the regular-season title by 48 points over teammate Hamlin and 64 over Byron.
With his accomplishment, Truex joined former teammate Kyle Busch as the second competitor to achieve two Cup Series Regular Season Championship titles in a season where he has achieved three victories (Dover Motor Speedway in April, Sonoma Raceway in June and New Hampshire Motor Speedway in July), one pole, nine top-five results, 15 top-10 results, 832 laps led and an average-finishing result of 11.4 throughout the 26-race regular-season stretch.
Awarded a 15-point Playoff bonus for winning this year’s regular-season title, Truex enters the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs tied with William Byron for the top seed in the Playoff standings with 2,036 points and as one of 16 competitors who will embark on a 10-race stretch to battle for the 2023 Cup Series title, beginning at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, next Sunday on September 3.
“The [regular-season] trophy is really cool, but we’re focused on the [season] championship again this year,” Truex said on NBC. “That feels really good. Really awesome to get those bonus points and just really proud of my team, everybody at [Joe Gibbs Racing],…all of our partners just giving us the opportunity to be here and being able to have a season like we’ve had. Hopefully, we can keep it going. It was a little frustrating not being able to really, really race tonight after Denny [Hamlin] got in that situation and we’d already got the stage win. That was kind of a bummer, but all in all, big picture, it was the right thing to do. Hopefully, we put together another 10 great races and do what we did in 2017 again. I feel as good as ever. I feel like our team is really, really strong. I feel like we can be strong anywhere we go. We’re optimistic, we’re hungry, we’re excited and fired up. Ready to get going.”
Through 647 career starts in the Cup Series and in addition to his lone championship in 2017, Truex has achieved 34 victories, 21 poles, 142 top-five results, 278 top-10 results, 12,125 laps led and an average-finishing result of 15.1 as he will pursue his second premier series title in 2023.
Martin Truex Jr.’s pursuit for his second NASCAR Cup Series championship commences next Sunday, September 3, at Darlington Raceway for the Cook Out Southern 500. The event’s coverage is scheduled to commence at 6 p.m. ET on USA Network.
