{"id":16981,"date":"2018-05-04T16:15:37","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T21:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=16981"},"modified":"2018-05-04T21:16:53","modified_gmt":"2018-05-05T02:16:53","slug":"martin-truex-jr-looks-to-bounce-back-at-dover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/04\/martin-truex-jr-looks-to-bounce-back-at-dover\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Truex Jr. looks to bounce back at Dover"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Dover, Del. \u2013 Martin Truex Jr.<\/strong> fully concedes that Dover (Del.) International Speedway feels like home to him.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Martin Truex Jr., driver of the #78 5-hour ENERGY\/Bass Pro Shops Toyota, drives during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway on May 4, 2018 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Jerry Markland\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> champion and New Jersey native scored his first career Cup victory in only his third start on the notoriously tough Dover miler and then won again in 2016. In the last eight races at the track he has seven top-10 finishes. The eighth? An 11th place. He\u2019s led a combined 509 laps in the last six races and has led at least 100 laps three times during that span.<\/p>\n

If that provides a dose of optimism for Sunday\u2019s AAA 400 Drive for Autism (2 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Truex, 38, and his Furniture Row Racing team will certainly take it. He\u2019s had a rough April, crashing out in three of the last four races including last Sunday at Talladega, Ala.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst time I came here, I fell in love with the track and I think any time you like a place you tend to understand it better and are able to just figure it out just a little bit quicker,\u201d Truex said of Dover.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MENCS_Dover_MTruex_050418.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u201cI guess coming up through the ranks figuring out the feel that I needed at this race track and what it took to be successful is something that I\u2019ve carried through all the teams I\u2019ve raced for and all the series I\u2019ve race in here. Been able to use that throughout the years to be successful and I feel like the numbers don\u2019t even show really the success that we\u2019ve had at this track.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had so many really good races end in heartbreak here and of course we\u2019ve won a few along the way as well, so it\u2019s not been stats-wise I guess \u2013 I don\u2019t even know if it\u2019s my best track \u2013 but definitely performance-wise I think it\u2019s up there with one of our best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dover is one of three tracks where Truex has multiple wins. And he\u2019s won three pole positions here \u2013 second only to Ryan Newman\u2019s four among active drivers.  More than half of his 24 starts have resulted in top-10 finishes (13) and another telling statistic at this traditionally tough venue \u2013 Truex has only two DNFs in 12 years of Cup racing here.<\/p>\n

His driver rating (97.2) is fifth best in the field \u2013 and that\u2019s with two drivers \u2013 Chase Elliott (four) and Kyle Larson (six) – ranked higher with only 10 starts between the two of them.<\/p>\n

All that said, Truex smiled Friday when asked if he has Dover all figured out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very challenging \u2013 one of the most challenging on the circuit just from a standpoint of how it can bite you, how hard you have to attack all the time and, you know, the consequences when you mess up are pretty bad here,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a difficult track in that mindset. For me coming here initially, it took a while to get up the nerve to get to where I needed to make the car. It was like, \u2018okay, I keep going and driving harder and harder and harder and the car still wants me to go faster,\u2019 you know?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo once you figure that out, from there it\u2019s 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\u2019s something you need to keep up with.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Truex knows what he needs to do. He scored five top-five finishes in the first six races of the season, including his first win of the year (from the pole position at Fontana, Calif.). He led the points standings for the first time since hoisting the 2017 Monster Energy Cup following that California victory.<\/p>\n

But the last four weeks, his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota team has suffered through uncharacteristically tough luck. He\u2019s had three finishes of 25th or worse \u2013 including a 37th place finish at Texas Motor Speedway where he completed only 80 laps of the 334-lap race.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s ranked ninth in the standings entering Sunday\u2019s race, the lowest he\u2019s been since a 12th place in the season-opening Daytona 500. He wasn\u2019t ranked lower than seventh all last season after a 17th place showing the 2016 Daytona 500 and he led the Cup standings for the final 19 weeks of the season en route to claiming his first championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that I\u2019d say our sport probably changes more week-to-week than it does year-to-year and so we\u2019ve had four tough races in a row right now and we\u2019re ninth in points, so I mean you\u2019re only as good as your last race so they say and right now I wouldn\u2019t say we\u2019re the hunted \u2013 I\u2019d say we\u2019re the hunters,\u2019\u2019 Truex said Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust 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\u2019d say most of the garage is the same way. I think the championship was last year and it\u2019s time to turn the page and try to do it again right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Dover, Del. \u2013 Martin Truex Jr. fully concedes that Dover (Del.) International Speedway feels like home to him. The reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion and New Jersey native scored his first career Cup victory in only his third start on the notoriously tough Dover miler and then won […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[222,244,16],"class_list":["post-16981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-dover-international-speedway","tag-martin-truex-jr","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MENCS_Dover_Truex_050418.jpg?fit=4232%2C2816","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-4pT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16984,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16981\/revisions\/16984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}