Truex’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing group has had loads of velocity this season. He’s led laps in all however two of eight races to this point and led the third most laps (352) amongst collection drivers.
In truth, 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 working on the lead lap on the finish of the race.
That report, together with his 5 top-10 finishes, has him second within the collection standings though he has but to win this yr. He has 295 factors, 14 behind chief Kyle Larson. All 4 JGR drivers are ranked eleventh or greater 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 working nicely to successful.
“I be ok with the place we’re at. We’ve had a top-three to top-five automotive each week, each race, except Martinsville final week,” Truex, 43, stated. “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
Photograph 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 fellows have been busting their tails engaged on pit stops. If we will clear that up a bit and so they can get some confidence and get constantly quick, our automobiles are nice, and the group is doing an ideal job and clicking and dealing laborious.
“Hopefully, we will 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 chief alternative for Truex to earn his first win of the yr.
Truex has usually 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 report 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 an excellent observe for us. In 2022, we have been main, and we blew a tire. It’s been a type of locations the place we now have been snakebit quite a bit,” Truex stated. “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 now have that we’ll run nicely, particularly how we ran there the final couple of years.
“It’s been powerful, we’ve gotten a number of poles there and led a number of laps, however we simply haven’t been capable of win there.”
