[media-credit name=”poconoraceway.com” align=”alignright” width=”207″]
[/media-credit]TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Martin Truex Jr. — Notes & Quotes Pocono Raceway – June 8, 2012
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Is it difficult to race without your crew chief? “It’s been an interesting few days coming here to Pocono with new pavement and trying to do some testing and get through all that stuff. My crew chief’s (Chad Johnston) back home and we haven’t had him this week — he’s on baby watch — so his first little boy is due anytime and he’s at home waiting on that, so it’s been a little bit challenging. It’s been a little bit different not having Chad around. He’s really been kind of the heart and soul of this team for close to the past year, so it’s been a little bit different, but we did get some practice at the end of last year not having him around when he was suspended. We’re kind of playing it out the same way we did then. Everything has gone good. The guys have done a nice job of stepping up and getting the job done the past few days and we’ve had a good few days of testing, a good practice today and looking forward to the rest of the weekend with our NAPA Toyota and keeping our car up front where it belongs.”
Will the shorter distance make for a better race? “I would like to think it would. That’s kind of the reason they did it was to try and make it better. One thing is for sure, it will be different. The strategy will be different. I’m not sure how the fuel mileage deal plays out with how many pit stops and what our windows are right now, but I’m sure it will definitely be different. Obviously with the track being changed, that’s really probably a bigger change than a 100 mile less race. I think still the focus is on how the racing will be on the new pavement more so than how it will be with 400 miles instead of 500.”
Do you expect to see drafting in Sunday’s race? “I think we’ll see quite a bit of drafting. I’m not sure what the highest speed is I’ve seen. I was trying to watch — we had the little telemetry thing there during testing and I was trying to watch it to see and the most I saw I think was like 206 (miles per hour), 207 and then I was like, ‘Oh God, I can’t look at that anymore and I need to focus on hitting my marks and not driving into the corner too deep.’ I think the most I saw was 206 or something like that, but it’s definitely fast. The straightaway speeds are not a lot faster than what they were — obviously, it’s the same size race track — but the corner speeds are up. The straightaway speeds are not really out of line from what we have seen in the past. A couple miles an hour faster is about it. I think there’s a point where you have so much drag in the car that you come off the corner 10 miles an hour faster, you’re still only going to be four or five faster at the end of the straightaway, so it’s kind of interesting how that work ed.”
What is your favorite change made to Pocono? “Well, I think probably the coolest part that I’ve noticed since we came here is it’s still Pocono. It still has the same tendencies. They did a good job of paving it, yet keeping the character in it that Pocono’s had. And any time you come here, the biggest challenge is all three corners being different. The tunnel turn is one of the, if not the trickiest turns on our whole circuit. It’s very, very fast. It’s very narrow. It’s flat. There’s a lot of little bumps in it and the transitions are not smooth. There’s a curve at the bottom that if you touch it at all, you have to let out of the gas. It’s just a tricky track in general and that really hasn’t changed, so that was the first thing I noticed the first couple laps. I was like, ‘Okay, it still feels like Pocono.’ It’s not a big change. Of course, it’s a little bit smoother, but it still has some bumps in it and some character to it and all the things that you remember about Pocono and the challenges of Pocono are still the same, so I think that’s a great thing.”
Is it fun to race on repaved tracks? “Yeah. I mean, if you’re fast, you love it. If you’re not, you don’t. That’s kind of the way it is everywhere we go. Guys have favorite tracks and most of the time it’s because they run good one them and so Pocono has never been one of my greatest tracks, but we’ve had some really good runs here in the past. We had a few good runs here last year. Yeah, I mean it’s cool to come to a race track and enjoy new challenges, especially for the crew chiefs and engineers — they love when they change stuff like this and they come here. You heard Greg (Biffle) talking that you’d come here before and sometimes you get really lost because you change all sorts of stuff on the car and the driver still wasn’t happy and you still fight the same issues. The engineers and the crew chiefs and stuff can really get to work on the race cars here like they do everywhere else now and they really enjoy that part and it’s fun for us to drive them when we can have some input on what the car is doing and how to make it better.”
Will your crew chief join you this weekend, if possible? “I wish I knew the answer to that. I asked him (Chad Johnson, crew chief) last night and I said, ‘So, are you coming here at all?’ The answer was, ‘No.’ I’m not sure — I think he’s just playing it by ear. It could happen at any moment — it might be today, it might tomorrow, it might be Monday. I don’t know.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing (continued) Would it be difficult for your crew chief to join you on Sunday? “Yeah. I think he wants to — I guess after everybody did the work all weekend, I guess what I’m saying is he wouldn’t want to come in on Sunday and say, ‘Okay, it’s my turn again.’ I think he kind of put a plan in place and he’s going to let it play out and let everybody do the job that he assigned them to. Like I said, everything so far has went smooth. These guys have had experience doing this before like we talked about and Chad’s (Johnston, crew chief) got a great bunch of guys together and he’s a great leader and he’s really done a nice job of keeping everybody in the loop, getting them all prepared for this and they’ve all done a really good job with it.”
Can you ignore a turn when setting up your car for Pocono after the repave? “Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m not sure there’s — really the exact answer for that doesn’t really come up until Sunday. Today, getting ready to qualify — things like that — you can’t really give up any. You have to be fast through all the turns. If you give up a half a second in one of them, you’re not going to gain it back in the other two. You really have to do a good job compromising. Which corner am I the best in? Which corner am I the worst in? Which one do we have to work on first so you can have that speed — especially for qualifying tomorrow, because qualifying is going to be everything here. With the new pavement, the groove is still narrow. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that yet, so starting up front is going to be important — it always has been here and I expect it to be tomorrow. Really to answer your question, they’re all important. In the race, I still feel like getting off of turn three is probably the most important. That’s the corner that leads onto the longest straightaway where you can do the most passing or lose the most spots by getting passed, so that’s probably the most important for the race. But, to be fast for tomorrow, you have to be fast in all three.”
Do you feel good about your season to date? “I feel good about where we are at. I feel like that we’ve met our expectations. I felt like we knew where we could be this part of the season and we’ve done a good job with that. Like you said, the few wins that we had a chance at that slipped away is pretty frustrating, but I feel good about it. The team’s done a nice job. We’ve been consistent. We haven’t beat ourselves and really the only place we haven’t run well is Richmond, so we’ve done a good job of being consistent, running well throughout all different race tracks. Certainly getting crashed out early at Talladega hurt us in points, but we’ve been able to maintain and we’ve been able to keep sight of the leader and be consistent. We just need to keep building on this, keep being consistent and not beating ourselves like we’re doing and hopefully when that Chase comes, we can take that next step. We’re not right where we want to be yet. We feel like there are some things we can improve on and we just need to keep focused on that and keep working on our cars to make them better and hopefully we’ll get to that next level, knock out a few wins and hopefully when the Chase comes we can make some noise.”
How much more fuel can you save by not shifting? “To be honest with you, I don’t know how much the difference is between shifting and not shifting. We didn’t really play with that much yet, but these days they have so much sim (simulator) stuff, they can pretty much tell you. They’ll say, ‘Alright, this is what it should be.’ It depends on how the cautions fall whether it will be fuel mileage or not. I assume it will probably go that way. I don’t see there being a lot of cautions here. We haven’t had a lot this season, for one, and this is typically a place where we see less than most places we go. I expect it to be — it will probably come down to fuel mileage a little bit. You just do what they tell you to do. Hopefully you have good fuel mileage and hopefully it works out for you. To answer your question about getting back to pit road, if you run out on the front straightaway you can get back around. It’s close, but if you run out going into one, you can make it, so as long as you don’t run out between turn three and turn one on the straightaway somewhere, you’re probably pretty safe.”
