Mr. Consistency: Martin Truex Jr. adds another top-10 finish
Things were not as smooth as he had hoped, but when the checkered flag fell on Saturday's Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr. was able to finish ninth and continue an impressive streak of seven consecutive top-10 finishes.
Starting from the 15th spot, Truex ran on the edge of the top 10 for much of the 334-lap event and fought track position throughout the entire race.
When the caution flew with 24 laps to go, the entire field came to pit road for the final time of the day. Running 14th at the time of the caution, crew chief Cole Pearn made the call for two tires and sent his driver out third for the final restart of the night.
With hungry drivers with four fresh tires lined up behind him, Truex fell back through the field on the restart. Truex was outside the top 10 in the closing laps, but was able to fight his way back to ninth by the time the checkered flag flew.
Despite falling back on the final run of the night, Truex believed Pearn's two-tire call was their best option to get track position.
"We had a bad pit stop right before that and lost it all," said Truex. "I think it was the right call. We may have gained two or three spots the other way; we may have lost two or three the other way. So, I'm not real sure. But we're taking some gambles and they've been paying off."
Those gambles, along with fast cars and a lot of confidence have Truex and Furniture Row Racing off to a strong start for the 2015 season. After seven races, Truex already has bettered his top-10 finish total from the 2014 season and sits third in the driver standings.
"We've been good, but we want to be great, and we're going to keep working until we find it," said Truex. "The cars are fast, it's hard to deny. The team is giving me good racecars, and that gives me confidence. When they make good changes like they did tonight, it gives me confidence. What I believe we have going right now is that we all believe in one another. Cole believes I'm the best there is, and I believe he's the best there is."
Truex admits the No. 78 team is off a bit on speed to the main Sprint Cup contenders, but the New Jersey native is pleased with how well the team has been communicating, making the right decisions at the right time and the changes being made are not inconsistent like they were in the past.
"Last year, we could just never find any consistency," he said. "One week this worked, one week this worked, one week that worked. You can't be inconsistent and run up front like that. You need to have a package that works for you and you can fine-tune each and every weekend, and we didn't have that."
During the off-season those issues were addressed, fixed and the results are showing through the first seven races of the year.
Truex admitted the streak of consecutive top-10 finishes crept into his mind in the closing laps of Friday night's race.
"With a couple laps to go and you're fighting to hold them off for ninth, you're thinking about it for sure," he said. "The rest of the night you're just trying to get to the front and trying to win the thing."
Moving forward Truex is confident the team has built a solid enough foundation to keep the momentum going over the next stretch of nine straight weeks of racing.
"We've got a great team. We've got great racecars," he said. "I think we're solid right now. We need to keep being solid. We have some things going down the pipeline that will hopefully find us some speed. The guys are working hard on trying to find better stuff. We've got a new car we're going to run at Kansas, so we feel real good about that.
"I feel really good about it. I feel like we can get better from here. Tonight was probably the furthest off we've been, and to run sixth, seventh, eighth all night long is pretty good. We'll just keep chipping away and hopefully close the gap."
VIDEO: Highlights from the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway
