Joe Gibbs Racing is entering the year with a fresh but familiar face for the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.
While JGR remains mostly the same for the upcoming season, they’ve added another Monster Energy Cup Series Champion to their roster. On January 4, JGR announced Martin Truex Jr. would be the pilot of the No. 19 Toyota Camry along with the addition of his crew chief Cole Pearn.
“I would say that for Cole it’s probably a bigger change,” Truex Jr. said. “He was in charge of so much at Furniture Row, he was really like an old school crew chief. He was in charge of building the cars, how they built the cars, the personnel and how they did everything. Now it’s a big team with four cars and 600 employees. They have their way of doing things and Cole gives his input. It’s definitely more different for him I would say.
“For me being surrounded by a lot of the same people especially most importantly him leading the team and assembling the right guys in the right situations. It hasn’t been a big change yet but that may change as we go down the road, a lot of things are still new to me. It feels good, it feels like home and I have a lot of comfort in the people around JGR since I spent time with them last year. It’s most comfortable for me out of all of us.”
Truex continued to get familiar with his new organization during a Goodyear Tire test at Auto Club Speedway in January and his teammate Kyle Busch, who won the title in 2015, was able to get accustomed to the 2019 package at Las Vegas Motor Speedway a week ago.
“Just making laps that’s what it’s all about,” Busch said. “Overall just trying to figure out what all is going on out there. Trying to figure out what all is going on and what kind of things are happening with what we have in our program vs what other guys and what they do in their program. Overall just trying to sort through the data and some of the things that will help us make our cars go fast.”
Aside from the changes Truex is getting accustomed to for the 2019 season, Denny Hamlin is heading into the new campaign with a brand-new crew chief, Chris Gabehart. Last year Hamlin went winless for the first time in his career.
“Looking forward to a new season, a lot of things are different with the package, new paint scheme, new crew chief and everything is shaping up for a reset,” Hamlin said. “Even though we didn’t get to victory lane there were still some positives, leading all of the big races at crucial points of the race. To me it’s trying to get a Brickyard 400 win, a Coke 600 win would be huge for me and my career.
“Those are the only two races that I need to check off the list and I feel like we have so many great race tracks for us. There really aren’t anymore weakness for our team anymore. Getting the pole at Watkins Glen, winning a road course two year ago and we always run extremely well at the restrictor plate race tracks. I’m at the point that where I go to the race track every week knowing and thinking we’re capable of winning.”
Audio: NASCAR Live 2019 Season Preview
Erik Jones returns for his second full-time season with JGR after capturing his first career Cup Series win last year in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.
“I think each year in the Cup series I’ve learned quite a bit along the way and I really feel like I’m in the best spot going into this year of knowing what it takes to win Cup races and be competitive,” he answered. “It’s a big change with the new rules package this year it’s going to be a lot different and you’re going to see a totally different form of racing. Definitely feel I would be the most comfortable going into this year than I have in my time in Cup.”
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