(Photo: Stephen Conley | The Podium Finish)
BROOKLYN, Mich. — Martin Truex Jr. walked into the media center at Michigan International Speedway and delivered a simple, yet important message.
“I’m coming back.”
After months of retirement speculation, Truex announced that he’ll return to Joe Gibbs Racing for at least one more season. The 43-year-old from Mayetta, New Jersey faced the same decision last year before ultimately announcing a return in June.
So why come back for a sixth season with JGR?
“It felt like the right thing to do was to keep going. The more I thought about it, the more I was like – ‘don’t be stupid, go race another year and see how it goes,'” Truex said. “It didn’t feel right to not come back and keep doing what we are doing. Excited to get that out of the way and continue to work on this year and excited for next year as well too.”
Truex had been asked the same question every week, but answered the same way: he didn’t know. However, he said that his mindset started to shift toward returning in 2024 over the last few weeks and officially signed the contract Friday night. He plans to take things year-by-year before committing to more seasons beyond 2024.
Truex had said in previous weeks that he wanted to make sure he could commit to everything that being a racecar driver entails, both on and off the track. He decided that he could.
“I’ve come to terms with all of that obviously, and I’m looking forward to continuing all of that,” Truex said. “It is part of the job. It comes with the territory. You are not going to half-ass this job. I’m ready. I’m excited. We’ve got a great thing going. My team is amazing. They are doing great things. Love working with them, and happy to keep this going.
“With our team, I think with our guys – it doesn’t really matter [when I decide to return]. They [were] more worried about next year than anything, but I don’t think it would have affected this year. I think it’s more so for the team, Coach (Joe Gibbs) and all of our partners, so we can just put that out of the way and go back and button up next year’s plans. It’s pretty late in the season to be putting them in a spot where you keep them hanging. I think I did that as long as possible – not on purpose, but it is just how it worked out.”
(Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
Truex has won three races this season and leads the regular-season points standings by 39 over teammate Denny Hamlin. His 12 top 10s are second in the series behind Kyle Busch and has eight top fives. He’s finished in the top five in six of the last nine races.
Before joining JGR in 2019, Truex spent five seasons with Furniture Row Racing before the team disbanded. He won the 2017 Cup Series championship and made the Championship 4 in three of his five seasons. He won 17 races in his tenure after going winless in 2014, his first season with the team.
In eight previous full-time Cup seasons, Truex won just two times. He won the 2004 and 2005 Xfinity Series championships before making his transition to Cup.
Truex has worked with crew chief James Small in each of the last four seasons and the duo has won eight races together. Beforehand, Small served as an engineer on Truex’s team at both JGR and Furniture Row.
“[Small] was happy. I don’t know if all of the guys know yet. I’ve got to go tell them,” Truex said. “This is the first announcement. He was really excited. He was like – let’s go get them this year and next year and figure it out from there. He works really hard. He’s part of the reason I want to keep going. I feel like we can win every week, and I don’t see that going anywhere.”
First things first, Truex has business to take care of in 2023 with a championship at the forefront. But he’s all in on forging ahead with JGR, regardless of how this season ends.
“Once you sign on the dotted line, you are committed,” he said. “A lot of people are looking for big things, and hopefully, I will deliver.”
Sunday’s Firekeepers Casino 400 is set for 2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Truex will start fifth.
