DENVER (Oct. 1, 2014) – In the past three Sprint Cup Series races, Martin Truex Jr. has driven his No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet to finishes of 14th (Chicago), 12th (New Hampshire) and seventh (Dover) for a three-race average of 11.0.
The 11.0 finishing average was better than 10 of the 16 Chase drivers in the first round of the playoffs.
Taking a quick, huge leap in performance is the exception rather than the rule in NASCAR. It’s the old cliché that invariably seems to work – take one step at a time until the performance goal is within reach.
Judging what has transpired in the last three Cup races, Truex and the Furniture Row Racing team are getting closer to their performance goal.
Though the past three results have been the best three-race finishing average of the season for Truex, there have not been any high-fives or a celebratory mood in the Furniture Row camp.
“We’ve been grinding and grinding and finally seeing some daylight,” said Truex. “At this time of the year you want see improvement and that’s exactly what we are seeing with our Furniture Row team. We still have a ways to go, but it’s sure nice to know that we appear to be headed in the right direction.”
With seven races remaining and not being in the Chase, the goal for the Denver-based single-car team is to get a jump-start on the 2015 season.
“We need to continue what we’ve been doing and even step it up a few more notches,” stated Truex. “We’ve had some decent finishes the past three weeks and right now our main focus is to find more speed and get this Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet ready with more consistency for the 2015 season.”
Truex is looking to continue his recent surge this weekend in the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan.
“It feels like we’re going through one of our better stretches of the season,” noted Truex. “I’ve had some good runs at Kansas over the years — a couple of second-place finishes and have led a bunch of laps (251). However, we weren’t that good at Kansas back in the spring (finished 21st), but that was then. We have learned a lot since the last Kansas race and would be truly disappointed if we aren’t competitive on Sunday.
Truex’s best runs at Kansas came during a three-race stretch. He was runner-up at both races in 2012 and placed fourth in the first race of 2013.
