Martin Truex Jr. has won on just about every type of track on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, but there’s one he’s yet to conquer.
After finally capturing short-track wins in 2019 with a season sweep at Richmond Raceway and then at Martinsville Speedway in the fall, Truex Jr. now sets his sights on a superspeedway victory at Daytona International Speedway or Talladega Superspeedway.
Truex will get his first shot at accomplishing that feat in the season-opening Daytona 500, a race that he came up short by 0.010 seconds to race winner Denny Hamlin in 2016.
“We’ve run second in the Daytona 500 before and that obviously a big race,” Truex Jr. said. “Just trying to get a superspeedway win that would be huge. I don’t feel like it’s probably a discipline that I’m the best at. I’ve been working hard at it and I feel like we are getting closer even though the results might not show it. Looking forward to hopefully trying to knock one of those plate races down.”
In 59 combined Cup starts at Daytona and Talladega, Truex has recorded four top fives, 12 top 10s and led 155 laps. In the Xfinity Series, Truex does own one win at Daytona and three at Talladega all coming early in his NASCAR career.
Truex will go after that elusive first superspeedway Cup win with a new crew chief. His former lead engineer, James Small, will now call the shots after Cole Pearn left the organization in the off-season.
Consecutive Season Win Streaks
Since 2017, Truex Jr. is the winningest driver in the NASCAR Cup Series with 19 wins. In that span he captured the ‘17 championship and two runner-up finishes in the standings. Last year in his first season with Joe Gibbs Racing, Truex led the series with seven wins.
