Before 2019, NASCAR’s short tracks were pitching a shutout against 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr.
That changed dramatically when Truex won the April 13, 2019 event at Richmond Raceway. The driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota completed the Richmond sweep in September before winning for the first time at Martinsville in late October.
In June of 2020, during last year’s pandemic-interrupted season, Truex won a second straight race at the .526-mile Virginia speedway, giving him four short-track victories over a 14-month period. There remains, however, one glaring hole in Truex’s resume—something he hopes to correct this year.
Truex has never won a superspeedway race. To try to erase that deficiency at Daytona and Talladega, he has changed spotters this year, from Clayton Hughes to Drew Herring, who has NASCAR Xfinity Series driving experience with JGR (and a best finish of fourth at Kentucky Speedway in 2012).
“I’ve got a list of things I’ve been working on,” Truex said. “I brought in a change in spotter this year to try to be better at speedways, which is now… you look at the 550 (horsepower) package, basically speedway racing on restarts for a few laps.
“Things like that, we’ve been working on to get better at. It’s everything. It takes all of that to win these races. They are very difficult to win. We look at every avenue.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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