Truex Aiming To Go Out With A Southern 500 Score

Martin Truex Jr (Rusty Jarrett/NKP for Toyota Racing photo)

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. – Martin Truex Jr. knows the sand in the hourglass of his final full-time NASCAR Cup Series season is quickly running out.

At this point in the year, he only has 11 more chances to get his first – and potentially final – win for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 19 Toyota Camry XSE.

The 44-year-old from Mayetta, N.J., is still in search of his first taste of victory champagne since last June, when he won at one of his home racetracks in New Hampshire (N.H.) Motor Speedway.

Nearing the final few weeks of his full-time career, Truex’s next attempt to get back to victory lane comes under the lights at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway Sunday night in one of the crown jewels of the sport, the 75th Cook Out Southern 500.

“It's a long race, a lot of pit stops and a lot of chances for things to go wrong. Track position is obviously really important,” said Truex of the prestigious race during a media availability on Tuesday. “To go through 13 sets of tires and what it means there, having to keep track position, it’s tough to stay up front and be consistently really strong.

“It’s tough to do for 500 miles, and I hope we can do that on Sunday night.”

While things are easier said than done, especially ahead of a crown jewel race, Truex’s bid at the postseason – and the ability to pursue a second Cup Series championship – in his final shot at the crown is all but sealed.

If no new winner wins the Southern 500, Truex just needs to finish 18th or better, even if he gets no stage points and 16th-place Chris Buescher sweeps both stages.

However, as proven numerous times already this year, the popular sports cliché that “anything can happen” still looms large. Case in point, just a week ago Harrison Burton took a shock victory at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway to vault himself into the playoff field from outside of the top 30 in points.

What should give Truex confidence, however, is his career record of two Darlington wins, four top-five finishes, and 10 top 10s over 24 career Cup Series starts at the Track Too Tough to Tame. He has also led 914 laps, with an average finishing position of 13th on the egg-shaped, 1.366-mile oval.

“I think [Darlington] just suits some guys, and others it doesn’t. For me, I feel like it’s about how I like to drive my car and the feel I need for the long run,” Truex said of his successful rhythm at Darlington over the years. “For as long as I remember, I don’t really know what I do differently than everyone else, and I don’t know if my team does, either. It’s just the way that it happens.”

Truex said that with the technology in racing these days, sometimes his No. 19 team can’t pinpoint why exactly they have success certain places, just that it happens – especially at a place like Darlington.

He instead directed the focus to simply having more than two decades of experience at the South Carolina track, and finding a natural feel over that length of time.

“You can see the SMT data and see exactly what a driver is doing, but there’s more to connecting that feeling and those inputs than you can imagine. It just suits me, and I really enjoy it.”

Truex has, admittedly, made a career out of old, worn-out racetracks, where tire management is a major key to success.

Combined among Kansas Speedway, the inactive Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway and Darlington, Truex has six wins, 25 top fives, 47 top 10s and over 2,200 laps led.

Needless to say, if a track hasn’t been paved in roughly 12 years or more, Truex has likely won or was in contention on it.

With a Darlington win Sunday night, Truex would secure his 35th career Cup Series victory. It would elevate him to 25th on the all-time win list, ahead of 2004 champion Kurt Busch, and just one win behind active driver and full-time RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski.

With the sun on Truex’s full-time career beginning to sink behind the horizon, he knows he’s come close many times to capturing a win already this season.

At Richmond (Va.) Raceway in April, Truex arguably should’ve had won if not for a controversial restart violation by teammate Denny Hamlin. In other weekends he’s contended at, Truex fans don’t have to look any further than Michigan two races ago.

Truex had race-winning pace and led 28 laps at the two-mile oval, but finished 24th.

But, if there ever were a time to secure his first win of the year, there would be none better for Truex than this weekend, with his first Southern 500 trophy since 2016.

Coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series’ regular season finale, the diamond running of the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington, begins Sunday night, Sept. 1 at 6 p.m. ET live on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.