Martin Truex Jr. can look back on his NASCAR Cup Series career with pride, but his path to becoming a champion and potential Hall of Fame inductee was anything but straight. Truex Jr. appeared on The Dale Jr. Download this week, joining Dale Earnhardt Jr. to discuss his career’s twists and turns and how he become one of the finest drivers of his time.
“You’ve mentioned your career; I’d like to talk about it a little bit,” Earnhardt Jr. began. “I can’t think of another circumstance like yours, where there are virtually two halves. I don’t know how you feel about it, but basically, when the public looks at your career, there’s this Martin Truex Jr. that we all thought we knew, and then there’s this second half of your career, where you were the best—one of the best, if not the best, driver in the series, in terms of Championship 4 appearances, championships, wins, and all of the success that you had.
“It’s a heck of a tale since it almost didn’t happen, right? How close, I suppose, was it? There was a point where you lost the deal—the Napa thing fell apart. You’ve mentioned that Barney almost pulled the plug at one time. Take us back to those times when you weren’t sure where your career was headed.” Speaking with the man who helped him get his start in NASCAR, Truex Jr. discussed some of his career highlights, including his time at DEI, his success at Michael Waltrip Racing under the Napa banner before losing that sponsorship, and his switch to Furniture Row Racing, which changed everything.
“It’s a heck of a tale since it almost didn’t happen, right? How close, I suppose, was it? There was a point where you lost the deal—the Napa thing fell apart. You’ve mentioned that Barney almost pulled the plug at one time. Take us back to those times when you weren’t sure where your career was headed.” Speaking with the man who helped him get his start in NASCAR, Truex Jr. discussed some of his career highlights, including his time at DEI, his success at Michael Waltrip Racing under the Napa banner before losing that sponsorship, and his switch to Furniture Row Racing, which changed everything.
Well, there was more than that. Even going back to DEI, when you departed and things began to unravel. We partnered with Ganassi, and it was the No. 1 and No. 42 cars. That was also kind of unpleasant; it wasn’t much fun, and things were going really badly. But, you know, the Napa transaction was probably the scariest since it happened so late in the year,” Truex Jr. remarked. “You know, I remember simply thinking, ‘There’s a potential that I don’t have a job next year,’ you know, and we had won a race that year, and made the playoffs for a couple of hours.
Things came together quickly, but at that point I was thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to a squad that doesn’t have a solid track record.’ They won a race in 2013, and they ran well with Kurt. They began to show up at the front on occasion. But, yes, I did not envision the future as it would unfold. I went from not knowing whether I’d have a job to two years later, you know, winning our first race together, and the next few years were just unbelievable. Storybook.”
Finally, Martin Truex Jr. had a NASCAR Cup Series career worthy of a movie. We’ll see if he can cap his chapter with the perfect ending, a title in Phoenix in November 2024.
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