Truex’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing group has had loads of pace this season. He’s led laps in all however two of eight races thus far and led the third most laps (352) amongst collection drivers.
The truth is, his 18th place effort final Sunday at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway is his worse end of the 2024 season and the one time he’s not been operating on the lead lap on the finish of the race.
That document, together with his 5 top-10 finishes, has him second within the collection standings although he has but to win this 12 months. He has 295 factors, 14 behind chief Kyle Larson. All 4 JGR drivers are ranked eleventh or increased and two (Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell) have victories.
The excellent news for Truex is he believes his group is greater than able to making the transition from operating nicely to profitable.
“I be ok with the place we’re at. We’ve had a top-three to top-five automobile each week, each race, except for Martinsville final week,” Truex, 43, mentioned. “We haven’t fairly capitalized on that over the course of a few of these races, a few of it in our management and different stuff that simply hasn’t labored out.
Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, Mavis Tires & Brakes Toyota Camry and Martin Truex Jr, Joe Gibbs Racing, Auto-Homeowners Insurance coverage Toyota Camry
Picture by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Pictures
“We’ve been actually constant. We’ve been engaged on cleansing up some errors in a number of areas, I do know the blokes have been busting their tails engaged on pit stops. If we are able to clear that up a bit and so they can get some confidence and get persistently quick, our automobiles are nice, and the group is doing an ideal job and clicking and dealing onerous.
“Hopefully, we are able to get our first win of the season right here actually quickly.”
On the floor, Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway would appear to be a first-rate alternative for Truex to earn his first win of the 12 months.
Truex has sometimes been very profitable on the 1.5-mile intermediate tracks. Of his 34 profession wins, 12 have come on 1.5-mile tracks like Texas.
Though he has a robust document at Texas throughout his profession – 17 top-10s in 34 begins together with three runner-up finishes – a victory has eluded him.
“It’s at all times been monitor for us. In 2022, we have been main, and we blew a tire. It’s been a type of locations the place we have now been snakebit lots,” Truex mentioned. “We’ve had some good runs; we’ve had some struggles at occasions since they repaved it.
“Simply a type of issues, however I really feel assured going there with what we have now that we’ll run nicely, particularly how we ran there the final couple of years.
“It’s been robust, we’ve gotten quite a lot of poles there and led quite a lot of laps, however we simply haven’t been capable of win there.”
