{"id":23336,"date":"2019-02-13T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T21:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23336"},"modified":"2019-02-15T19:06:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T01:06:18","slug":"new-team-same-goal-for-truex-win-elusive-daytona-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/13\/new-team-same-goal-for-truex-win-elusive-daytona-500\/","title":{"rendered":"New team, same goal for Truex: Win elusive Daytona 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Martin Truex Jr.<\/strong> showed up for Daytona 500 Media Day looking relaxed but speaking of high expectations for his debut season driving the No. 19 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.<\/p>\n

\"\"

NASCAR driver Martin Truex Jr. speaks with the media during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 61st Annual Daytona 500 Media Day at Daytona International Speedway on February 13, 2019 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Truex moved to the Gibbs stable this year after spending five seasons with the Furniture Row Racing organization where he enjoyed the best year of his career \u2013 winning eight races (more than his previous entire career total – seven) en route to the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> championship trophy.<\/p>\n

Because of the \u201csatellite\u201d working relationship between FRR and the Gibbs organizations, he said the transition to the championship Gibbs group has \u201cfortunately\u201d been relatively seamless. Now he and his crew chief Cole Pearn can join company competition meetings in person instead of via satellite.<\/p>\n

The expectation is to win immediately. And often.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that it was a lot easier,” Truex, 38, said with a smile during Media Day to preview Sunday’s Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX). \u201cA lot less unknowns. Less nervous about it just because I know things. I talk about simple things like I know what their brakes are like. I know what their throttle pedal feels like. I know what kind of steering they run.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/D500_MediaDay_TruexJr_021319.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019ve switched teams before it\u2019s like starting over a lot of times. When I went from DEI (Dale Earnhardt Incorporated) to MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) it was like completely starting over. All new people. All different parts and pieces. All new equipment. Everything felt different. The approach was different. That\u2019s where you kind of have that anxiety of how\u2019s this really going to be. I think it\u2019s going to be good, but I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many questions when you switch teams like that. For this transition for me, it was a lot easier because we worked so closely together the past couple of years. We\u2019ve essentially built our cars together. We used all the same stuff \u2013 parts and pieces, engines, you name it. I\u2019m familiar with all that. I\u2019m familiar with their process. The way they do things. The way they work together. The way their meetings are. You name it, it\u2019s a comfortable change. For me, it\u2019s been as easy as it\u2019s ever been to switch teams like this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obviously the first big goal for Truex is a good showing in the Daytona 500. The closest he came to winning it was the closest anyone came to winning it \u2013 one-hundredth of a second. He finished alongside Denny Hamlin \u2013 now a teammate at JGR \u2013 in a finish so close officials had to review it.<\/p>\n

Ultimately Hamlin hoisted the trophy. Truex is still pursuing it \u2013 eager to add a Daytona 500 triumph to his championship career. He has three top-10 finishes in 14 races and was 18th last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it can be frustrating, but anything that big is not easy to get,” Truex recalled, shaking his head. \u201cIt\u2019s just the way it is. You look at Dale Earnhardt, it took him 17 tries or something \u2013 20. He won the most races at Daytona of anyone ever and he hadn\u2019t won the Daytona 500. That just shows how hard it is to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s changed over the years. You look at a guy like Trevor Bayne \u2013 he came out of nowhere and won the thing and never won any other races. It\u2019s one of those races where crazy things tend to happen. Huge stories tend to come out of it and that\u2019s part of the reason why it\u2019s such a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, in this circumstance, it would also be a statement.<\/p>\n

Truex is driving for the fourth team in his 13-year fulltime career. He won races for the previous three and would love to land Gibbs a fifth Cup title.<\/p>\n

Last year he made a run at back-to-back championships \u2013 unofficially a part of 2018 \u201cBig Three\u201d \u2013 comprised of eight-time race winners Kevin Harvick and Truex\u2019s new teammate at JGR, Kyle Busch. Truex was a four-time winner and the threesome were the year\u2019s winningest.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody in the garage wants to be one of those guys that are looked at as ‘here\u2019s the guys to beat every week,'” Truex said. \u201cWe all want to be there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been fun to be in that position for a couple years. No guarantee that we\u2019ll be there again. You never know who\u2019s going to figure it out quick and come out \u2013 some guy could come out of nowhere this season, you never know because it\u2019s going to be so different. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to learn. I really don\u2019t worry about all that stuff. I worry about results. I want to win races and if we do our jobs and if I\u2019m happy with the job I\u2019m doing then yeah, I\u2019ll probably be one of those Big Three.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Martin Truex Jr. showed up for Daytona 500 Media Day looking relaxed but speaking of high expectations for his debut season driving the No. 19 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. Truex moved to the Gibbs stable this year after spending five seasons with the Furniture Row […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":23337,"comment_status":"open","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":[42,287,244,16],"class_list":["post-23336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-daytona-500","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-martin-truex-jr","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Truex_MediaDay_021319.jpg?fit=7177%2C4790","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-64o","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23336","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\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23339,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23336\/revisions\/23339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}