Truex steps into spotlight as Earnhardt's exit looms

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- As recently as three weeks ago, he was a frustrated and unheralded driver who was completely overshadowed even on his own team. Now he's a winner on NASCAR's premier circuit, and on the brink of becoming the public face of Dale Earnhardt Inc.

How things have changed in such a short time for Martin Truex Jr. Weeks of failures and unfulfilled promise came to an end when he dominated the rain-delayed event at Dover International Speedway on June 4. A third-place finish last Sunday at Pocono vaulted him into contention for a Chase berth. And when Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced his intention to leave the organization his late father founded, this often overlooked, sometimes anonymous 26-year-old moved to the brink of becoming the public face of one of the most popular teams in NASCAR.

"I think a leader is someone who just does it naturally, who is not asked to be the leader. That's what Martin has done," said Richie Gilmore, vice president for motorsports at DEI. "No one has come right out and said, 'Junior is leaving, you've got to be our leader.' He's done it naturally. He's been in the shop, he's been around the cars, he's at the racetrack. He's just done it naturally. To step up to another level and be that leader, I think he's a guy who can do that for us."

DEI still has to sign another driver for next season, and may ink someone like Kyle Busch -- right now, the team's No. 1 target -- with a more impressive resume than Truex. But the performances turned in by the New Jersey native in the weeks since Earnhardt's initial announcement have allayed some concerns about the organization's ability to compete without its current top driver. Truex has maintained all along that the team can not only survive, but thrive without Earnhardt. A few weeks ago, comments like those were dismissed as remarks made by a young and relatively unproven driver.

Not any more. His results in the past two races have backed up his words.

"I think it pretty much should hush everybody up," said Truex, who will start eighth in Sunday's event at Michigan International Speedway. "It should squash all that. They're working harder than they ever have to get everything right, to get the right people in place, to make our cars better. There's no reason why 42 other teams can make it out here without Junior, and we can't. I love Junior to death. He's like a brother to me. He's been a great friend. I'm real excited for him with what he's got going on right now. But we can do it."

And Earnhardt is glad to see it. "I think that you know, it hurts ... those guys' pride when the remarks were made about DEI not being able to continue without me as a driver there," he said. "And for them to go out and make a statement like they have over the last couple of weeks, I think it helps them and gives them a lot of confidence and gives the rest of the employees that are not going to the racetrack a lot of confidence."

Winning proved the missing link. Since the final race of last season, when he finished second at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Truex's cars have steadily improved. But at every turn, some sort of misfortune lurked -- getting caught on pit road during a caution at Daytona, blowing an engine at California, suffering damage in an accident somewhere else. Those incidences chipped away at his confidence, and made the breakthrough seem further away than it really was.

"For a while there, it seemed like things would never go right for us, and I always just wondered why, what did we do to deserve this? You get down when things are going bad, and they weren't necessarily going bad, but we'd pit and the caution would come out. Just stupid things would happen, and you'd get so aggravated and so mad that you start to question everything," Truex said.

"Luckily, these guys [on the No. 1 crew] have always done a good job of keeping me focused and keeping me pumped up and keeping me looking at the positives -- how well we ran, the lap times as compared to everybody else on the racetrack, and things like that. They've done a good job of keeping me focused on the things I need to focus on."

And then came Dover, and performance near his home state where Truex led 216 of 400 laps to record his first Nextel Cup victory. (watch video) Earnhardt has seen it before -- a young driver finds that first win, the pressure melts away, confidence grows and results improve across the board.

"I told him when he won that race, 'You're going to run better on average now just because.' When you win that first race, your whole program just steps up a notch, for no apparent reason. There's no real rhyme or reason to it, but you'll just be running better," Earnhardt said.

"It's sort of like the kid who doesn't write on the doorjamb how tall he is over the years. You don't notice yourself getting taller, but you are. That's what I told him he was going to do. I feel really good now that he's doing that, because it takes a lot of pressure and worry off of me as to what everybody's plans were at DEI and what would happen. I think he's going to be able to provide that company the success it needs to garner the sponsorship and bring in the corporate interest it needs to compete."

Truex's run of success shows all signs of continuing at Michigan, where his No. 1 Chevy topped Friday's opening practice session and has been one of the fastest cars all weekend (Practice 2). His team has progressed from wondering if it can win races, to thinking it can win every weekend. Elliott Sadler crossed that threshold himself in 2001, and vividly remembers what it was like.

"It's the difference between looking at someone and saying, 'I think I can do it,' and saying, 'I know I can do it.' I've done it," said Sadler, who has won twice more since. "That's a big relief, and it's especially a big relief for you and the team that you're with. There's a big difference between going, 'We can do this,' to, 'We did this, and we can do it again.' It's just a big momentum boost. It's big for your confidence, and it makes you feel like you belong in this sport. If you can win in this sport, if you can beat 42 other guys on a given Sunday ... you feel like you've done a good job and you deserve to be here."

Truex has made strides off the track as well. Gilmore recalls the April race at Phoenix, where Truex's advice helped DEI driver Paul Menard figure out the quirky 1-mile track. Before last week's race at Pocono, Menard called Truex and asked about the line he needed to take around the triangular layout. That conversation helped Menard, outside the top 35 in owner points, qualify for the race.

It's all part of the maturing process for a driver who may very well be the face of his franchise at this time next year.

"We still know the things we have to get better on, and we still know the challenges we're going to face," Truex said. "But we've got the confidence now to know that we can meet all those challenges, and we can go out there and win the race if we do things right. It's a good feeling."