NSCS: Martin Truex Jr. Enjoys Coming to Dover For Many Reasons

Martin Truex Jr., driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Toyota, always looks forward to racing at Dover International Speedway. It is where he won his first NASCAR Sprint Cup series race and since NASCAR doesn’t currently race in New Jersey, which is where Truex hails from, he considers Dover to be his home track.

“I love coming up to this race track for a lot of reasons,” Truex said. “Of course, being close to home is always neat, but a lot of friends and family come to this race, so it’s always neat to see them. Most importantly, I love the race track. Our cars have been fast this year and I’m looking forward to hopefully going back to victory lane, that’s what it’s all about, that’s what we’re here for. I’m looking forward to the opportunity.”

After he had led 172 of the 211 laps of the Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway, Truex headed down pit road under a late cycle of green flag stops, however as soon as he got back out on track, he realized something was not right because his car was shaking. This forced him to go back down pit road so that his crew could access the issue and fix it if need be. It ended up being a broken bolt on one of his rear tires. This put Truex a lap down, however he managed his way back to 17th before the checkered flag came out.

“It’s a lot easier than if you weren’t fast and let one slip away and felt like your chances or the opportunity would be hard to get again or it was going to take a while to get that opportunity again,” Truex replied. “It’s definitely easier when you’re running good and you feel like every time you show up at the race track there’s an opportunity, you can get up there and lead some laps and have a shot at winning. It definitely helps.”

Dover is a track where it is easy to pass but the racing is still intense.

“It’s definitely different how you approach the race track,” Truex said. “You still setup passes really the same way, you look for a guy’s weakness in front of you for where he’s running on the race track and you try to figure out what your options are and how I’m going to make it happen. It could be different, but for the most part it’s still all about figuring out how to get around the corner faster than the guy in front of you. It’s funny, you think about this place and it’s somewhat two-groove. Sometimes guys get the high side rolling, but typically when you get a run on somebody or you pass somebody it’s because they slipped. Because you’re so on edge here, there’s more opportunities to pass because most guys want to run the same line. It’s really hard to get your car running right, get your car doing the things you want to run that one lane. Opportunities are when guys slip and make mistakes.”

This will be Truex’s tenth year racing at Dover. In those ten years he has seen many different changes to the track.

“Well there’s been a lot of changes over the years to the cars and the tire and this track has changed some itself,” Truex added. “Even though it’s concrete and they typically hold up really well, we’ve seen some bumps come and go and it’s been ground years ago and so it’s definitely changed. I think the biggest changes are always to the tires and the downforce levels and the bodies and things like that. We’ve been through a few generations of race cars, so a lot has changed, but Dover is still Dover. It’s like going to Bristol – it’s one of those places that you always fight the same problems, you really always approach it the same way and it takes kind of a different driving style to get around it than most tracks you go to.”

Adding Safer Barriers to some of the concrete walls around the track is one of the changes; they also have done some work to the pit stalls as well, extending them due to going from 43 to 40 stalls.

“Pit stalls – that’s a big deal – enlarging them, making them just that few extra feet could make all the difference,” Truex states. “It’s always been a really tight pit road, difficult to get in and out of your box especial if there’s some in front and behind you – not a lot of room for the pit crews to do their work, so it’s definitely going to be a big help, give us a little bit more room. The SAFER barriers are a good addition everywhere obviously. I think as we get down the road here every single piece of wall that you could possibly hit on a race track is going to be SAFER barrier, so it’s a good thing, good upgrade and it should help us all.”