Joe Gibbs Racing driver Martin Truex Jr. was made available to the media following qualifying on Saturday at Darlington Raceway where he earned the pole position:
TOYOTA QUALIFYING POSITIONS
1st, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
2nd, BUBBA WALLACE
3rd, Ricky Stenhouse Jr.*
4th, William Byron*
5th, Ross Chastain*
8th, DENNY HAMLIN
9th, TYLER REDDICK
13th, TY GIBBS
16th, CHRISTOPHER BELL
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 1st
Is momentum a real thing in racing?
“It’s so hard to know, but it feels that way. I just think it’s a matter of everything coming together with your team. Our cars are fast, we’re executing and things are coming together lately and it feels like momentum, but it’s just things coming together. It’s a lot, it take a lot to be running good in this series at this level consistently and I think when all those things comes together, it’s momentum. But it’s also a lot coming together behind the scenes. It’s not just some crazy thing that falls out of the sky.”
Do you feel that you are on a good string of race tracks right now?
“I felt good a few weeks ago about that, knowing that we had some good tracks coming up. I think the first six or seven races of the year maybe, things were a little up and down, but we could see that we had speed and see what we were needing to do and what we were capable of. Went to Richmond and felt like we probably should have won there and ran ourselves out of tires. Then it was nice to just get it out of the way and get the win at Dover and then last week at Kansas, felt like we had a shot to win again and had some damage mid-race that hampered that. Overall, just qualifying well and we have speed everywhere we’ve been lately at all different racetracks. The team just across the board is doing a good job and it’s fun to come to the racetrack and be fast.”
How has this new race car changed how you race at Darlington?
“Not really, I think it’s really, really similar to what we’ve done in the past through different cars and throughout the year since basically all the way back to the repave, but similar. Just this car is a bit more difficult. It’s more difficult to run fast behind a car and to run faster than the guy in front of your specifically if they’re running the same line. So it’s very challenging, but it’s really the same thing. You have to be patient and hope they’re running somewhere different than you are which typically isn’t the case. If you’re able to move around a little bit, it’s helpful.”
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