Information By: BILL JANITZ / JOE GIBBS RACING – HUNTERSVILLE, NC
Martin Truex Jr.
Michigan Advance
No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry XSE for Joe Gibbs Racing
Event Overview
● Event: FireKeepers Casino 400 (Round 24 of 36)
● Time/Date: 2:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 18
● Location: Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn
● Layout: 2-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 200 laps / 400 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 45 laps / Stage 2: 75 laps / Final Stage: 80 laps
● TV/Radio: USA Network / MRN Radio / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Notes of Interest
● Where We Stand: Truex sits eighth in the Cup Series standings with 662 points, 117 behind new leader Kyle Larson. All four JGR entries are currently inside the top-11 in the standings with Denny Hamlin fourth, Christopher Bell sixth and Ty Gibbs 11th as the series heads to the Irish Hills of Michigan this weekend.
● You Don’t See This Very Often: With an engine failure last weekend at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway, Truex suffered his first DNF (Did Not Finish) of the season. It was just the fourth DNF for Truex in the last two seasons.
● Home Game: Truex heads to Michigan hoping to get his first win at the 2-mile oval in the backyard of his primary sponsor this weekend – Auto-Owners Insurance, which is headquartered north of the track in Lansing.
● Truex has 11 top-five finishes and 16 top-10s and has led a total of 322 laps in 33 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Michigan. Truex’s average Michigan finish is 13.1. The Auto-Owners Insurance driver hasn’t finished outside the top-10 at the 2-mile oval since August 2018 and has not finished outside the top-10 at Michigan in a JGR-prepared car.
● Looking for 35: Truex’s win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon in July 2023 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.
● Ahead at this Stage: Truex has accumulated 63 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 last August. Truex scored his third stage win of the season last month at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, leading the field across the line at the end of Stage 1.
Martin Truex Jr., Driver of the No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry XSE
Michigan has been a place where you’ve been very consistent but haven’t quite been able to break through with a win. What are your thoughts heading into the weekend?
“Michigan is the fastest track we go to. It’s really hard to hold your foot down going into turn one. Your brain is telling you that you need to start lifting, but usually the car can take a bit more. It’s super, super fast and the commitment level is very high. And the groove is not really wide, which is different than, say, Fontana, where you can go really fast but the groove is very wide. You miss it by a few inches there you will be OK. At Michigan, not so much, especially when the traction compound is live, it’s very sketchy and on edge. We’ve been very consistent there in my time with JGR, but James (Small, crew chief) and the guys have been bringing fast cars. Hoping Michigan is another place we add to the win list this weekend with our Auto-Owners Insurance Camry. Really would love to get Auto-Owners a win at their home track. They’ll have a lot of people at the track cheering us on Sunday and hope we can make them proud.”
Last year, you had a runner-up finish at Michigan and almost pulled off the win. What worked so well for you there last year?
“I think we just needed a little longer run at the end of the race and we might have been able to catch the 17 (Chris Buescher). I felt like we were a little better, but it was just really hard to pass the leader on equal tires. Our Auto-Owners Camry was a rocket last year – just the leader in clean air was really, really hard to pass, which is usually the case. We just didn’t quite have enough, but I’m hoping things work out a little bit better for us and we can turn that strong finish from last year into a win this time around.”
With Auto-Owners right up the road in Lansing, Michigan, what has Auto-Owners meant to you as a longtime partner over the years, and how big is the Michigan weekend for them?
“They’ve meant a ton. I was able to visit the office there recently and get to see all the employees, and I have so many supporters there over the years. This is the eighth year they’ve been a partner of the teams I’ve driven for. Can’t thank them all enough for all of their support over the years, they are a special group. Going to be fun to see everyone with Auto-Owners Insurance at the track one more time at Michigan this weekend. We have a lot of visits to make and it will be great to get to thank them in person, as well.”
How much confidence do you have coming into the weekend?
“For sure, it’s been a tough couple of months, finish-wise. Speed-wise, aside from maybe just a few races like Iowa, we’ve been solid. Just need to capitalize on that and execute. It takes a lot of things to win races, lead laps, stay up front and have fast cars, so hope we can put it all together this weekend. But I feel good about it. Yeah, just kind of been in a slump for a little while now and we’ve had fast cars like we had at Richmond, and then bad things have happened that have kept us from good finishes.”