Martin Truex Jr. looking to ‘settle another’ score in Texas

Martin Truex Jr. is typically seen walking around the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series garage sporting his Furniture Row Racing fire suit and black hat with whichever primary sponsor he's repping that weekend. He's looking to finally add the one hat to his collection that's eluded him for the better part of a decade and a half -- the traditional cowboy hat handed out to the race winners at Texas Motor Speedway. It's surprising the reigning champion has yet to win at the 1.5-mile track -- for that exact reason, its length -- and the intermediate master is well aware of the '0' next to his name in the win column at TMS. “We’ve settled one score in California and it’s time to settle another in Texas,” Truex said in a team release. “We’ve definitely had the cars to win at Texas, but haven’t been able to close the deal. We’ve led a bunch of laps there and came close last fall. Hopefully we’ll have the same result in Texas this weekend as we did in California.” MORE: Truex Jr. earns first victory at Auto Club | Truex's Texas stats According the the team,  Texas was one of the tracks that the No. 78 crew circled on the calendar before the season. Another was Auto Club Speedway, where Truex won for the first time in his 18th try a few weeks ago. Sunday's O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 (2 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio) will be his 26th attempt at Texas. In the fall 2017 race at the Fort Worth facility, Truex finished runner-up after losing the lead with 10 laps remaining to Kevin Harvick. A few weeks later he got the last laugh, winning the championship over Harvick, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski at Miami. Still, the Texas surrender sticks with the team. “It sure would be nice to get that Texas monkey off our back,” crew chief Cole Pearn said. “The competition is fierce, and in order to have a chance to win, you have to have maximum performance in all aspects of the race team.” RELATED: See all of Truex's wins Since Pearn took over the Furniture Row Racing crew chief duties in 2015, Truex has claimed two top fives and six top 10s in six starts at Texas. Truex twice led the most laps during this period -- the 2016 spring race (141) and the 2017 fall race (107). Not only that, but nine of Truex’s 16 career victories have come at 1.5-mile ovals. Last year, seven of his eight wins were at an intermediate track. Of the eight 1.5-mile tracks on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series circuit, Texas and Atlanta are the only two where Truex has not scored a victory, and Texas ranks as his seventh-best track -- of any shape or size -- in terms of average finish. That score might be settled come Sunday night for Truex and Co.