Martin Truex Jr. is embracing the idea he is the man to beat as the reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion.
Now that the Furniture Row Racing driver has a Cup Series championship trophy after last year’s title run, he understands the rest of his competitors are vying to take it away in 2018.
But Truex Jr. is well aware how fast the NASCAR world changes and isn’t putting much stock into what happened a year ago.
“Yeah, I don’t really think it’s really a whole lot different,” he said about being the current champion.
“I think that I’d say our sport probably changes more week-to-week than it does year-to-year and so we’ve had four tough races in a row right now and we’re ninth in points, so I mean you’re only as good as your last race so they say and right now I wouldn’t say we’re the hunted – I’d say we’re the hunters.
“Just trying to get back on track and get to where we need to go and, you know, for us I think we always tend to focus on our program more than anything else and I think I’d say most of the garage is the same way. I think the championship was last year and it’s time to turn the page and try to do it again right now.”
Dover couldn’t come at a better time as Truex Jr. has experienced a four-race stretch of tough finishes. Truex Jr. has scored one win so far this season with a victory at Auto Club Speedway. He’d welcome the opportunity to add to that total this weekend in Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway, which is not far from the New Jersey native’s home.
“Well, I guess it’s one of my home tracks, right?” Truex Jr. joked. “Everybody says I have a lot of home tracks. Yeah, honestly just always look forward to coming up here. I have a lot of memories coming to this race track.
“A lot of really, really good memories, a lot of success, a lot of special times and just, you know, it’s definitely one of those places I really enjoyed coming too, so love the race track, love the part of the country and looking forward to hopefully having a great weekend.”
Truex Jr. is a two-time Dover winner with his most recent victory coming in 2016. He hasn’t finished worse than third in his last three Dover starts but it took him some time to get his arms around running well at the one-mile concrete track.
“For me coming here initially, it took a lot to – it took a while to get up the nerve to get to where I needed to make the car,” he explained. “It was like, okay, I keep going and driving harder and harder and harder and the car still wants me to go faster, you know?
“So once you figure that out, from there it’s really all just about through the years adapting to changing race cars, changing rules, tires changing, the track changing as it ages and just continuing to try to stay on top of all those things I think is the biggest challenge now. But certainly in the race, 400 laps here is quite a challenge as well, so that’s something you need to keep up with.”
