NAPA Racing/Mar​tin Truex Jr. Charlotte 2 Preview

No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. said there’s a lot of racing left in the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, but it’s time to start cutting into Chase leader Brad Keselowski’s 47-point lead over the eighth-place Michael Waltrip Racing team.

Saturday night’s 500-mile race at Charlotte Motor Speedway marks the fifth of NASCAR’s 10-race Chase. Truex is just 12 points out of fourth-place, but it’s first place he wants to catch. The No. 56 team finished 12th at the 1.5-mile track in May so it could be a place where Truex begins a comeback.

Truex on Racing at Charlotte:“I always look forward to this race. I especially like racing this close to our home and the race shop. This is another race where I have a lot of friends and family that come in for the weekend. It’s kind of a home game for all of us. I really like the track schedule and enjoy qualifying on Thursday night. It’s always a neat qualifying session. With the weather we have been having, the track is going to be lightning fast. Charlotte has been a challenge for this NAPA team so we have a little work to do. I think we are still very capable of going into it this weekend with a chance to contend for the race win and have the NAPA Toyota up front.”

On Standings:“I was hoping to come out of Talladega a little closer in points than we did. We gained on a lot of the guys around us. Obviously, the No. 24 and No. 2 teams beat us and we lost a little more ground to the leader. But, the standings from second to seven have gotten a lot tighter. We are in range. We race every weekend to earn maximum points. That’s what we are doing. There is still a lot of racing left to go and some really good tracks coming up for us. I hope we can be knocking on the top-five after Charlotte or Kansas. All I want is to go into Homestead with a chance. That’s my goal right now.”

MWR PR