Come Sunday afternoon at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. will compete in the final road course race of his 21-year Cup Series career.
The Bank of America Roval 400k at Charlotte marks the final race of five road-course races on the 2024 Cup Series schedule. Truex finished 10th in the first road-course race of the year at the Circuit of the Americas on March 24 in Austin, Texas. The Mayetta, New Jersey, native finished 27th on June 9 at Sonoma Raceway, where he was running second when he ran out of fuel on the final lap. He finished 33rd when the Cup Series visited the downtown Chicago Street course on July 7, then finished 20th in September at Watkins Glen International.
Truex has two top-10 finishes and has led a total of six laps in six career NASCAR Cup Series starts on the Charlotte Roval. Truex’s average Roval finish is 15.7.
Road courses have been somewhat kind to Truex. He has a total of five wins, 13 top-five finishes and 19 top-10s at the three permanent road-course venues on the Cup Series schedule – Sonoma, COTA and Watkins Glen. Four of those wins came at Sonoma and one at Watkins Glen.
Going into the race at Charlotte on the ROVAL, a combination of road course and oval, Truex’s July 2023 win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon was his most recent Cup Series win, the 34th of his career, tying him with 2004 champion Kurt Busch for 25th on the all-time Cup Series win list.
The 2017 Cup Series champion knows how to win stages in Cup Series competition. He has accumulated 64 stage wins since the beginning of the stage era in 2017. He is the only driver with 10 or more stage sweeps, with his latest sweep coming at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, in August 2023. Truex scored his fourth stage win of the season last month at Watkins Glen, leading the field across the line at the end of Stage One.
Truex Jr. remembered when the track was being completed in early 2018 and how different it is today.
“I remember all of it,” Truex said. “I remember testing on the track for the first time when it was even a different configuration than we ended up with. There were no curbs, no grass, no paint, there was just dirt and old pavement. They just kept spicing it up and adding curbs and paint and all this stuff and it turned out to be a pretty cool-looking racetrack, especially on TV with all the paint, and it had a bit of an F1 feel to it from that standpoint. Still think it was kind of wonky and weird, but I also think it’s what makes it what it is. It’s very unique, it’s different, it’s challenging. They went out on a long limb when it was created and it turned out to be pretty cool.”
Then a few more additions were added, and the track and the surroundings began to take shape. Truex left at home from the minute he took to the track with left and right turns, then driving for former team owner Barney Visser.
“I was one of the first guys to test with just an infield road course with grass all around,” Truex said. “I was wondering, since it was small and narrow and not sure how we would race on it beforehand, but it turned out to be quite the show. You have to be open-minded and embrace the challenges and try to do the best you can with it. That was how I viewed the Roval at the beginning, and how we tried to approach the Chicago Street Race, as well. We almost won the Roval the first year, so we ran well there and would love to get that win there this weekend with our Bass Pro Shops Camry.”
Superspeedway racing can be crazy, as seen at Talladega Superspeedway with four-wide racing and what resulted as the largest pile-up in the track’s 55-yer history. Road courses can also pose their own challenges.
“The obvious answer to most is the superspeedways and how things happen and how it can take out a lot of cars quickly,” Truex said. “However, road-course restarts have become the next-craziest part of what we do. Looking back at last year, we crashed on one of the restarts with guys going five- and six-wide and guys trying to make up eight to 10 spots in one corner. I think that’s the biggest change in our sport in the last few years.”
The Gen 7 race car being used today is considered one of the sport’s toughest machines that can endure crashes and still manage to continue if not too badly damaged.
In 2010, team owner and driver Tony Stewart won half of the final 10 races and won his third career championship. Not too many in the sport feel such a feat can be pulled in today’s ultra-competitive environment. Truex agrees.
“I think it’s definitely harder to do than it was,” Truex said. “It’s all because of the car. Definitely. You used to be able to find advantages easier with cars and builds than you can now. You’ve sort of seen it so far here in the playoffs, not only have we seen several different winners, but we’ve also seen several guys who have won who are not currently in the playoffs.”
Truex hopes to pull off one last road course win before he retires from driving in NASCAR’s Cup Series at season’s end. Truex will need his amazing talent, good luck, a strong car and a fast crew to secure the win.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: NASCAR Martin Truex on wonky road course in Charlotte
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