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CONCORD, N.C. — The coveted Coca-Cola 600 trophy Martin Truex Jr. claimed back in May still remains displayed in his house. It’s a symbol of power and victory, as Truex dominated the Crown Jewel event by leading 392 of 400 laps of the series’ longest race.
It’s also a reminder.
“Those are wins you never forget,” Truex said Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. ” … It’s something every time you walk by (the trophy), you understand what it took to get here and what it took to win that race and how many times I’ve tried before I finally got it, so definitely it’s a special one.”
With new sponsor Maaco adorning the quarter panel of his No. 78 Toyota, he’ll have another reminder of his Coca-Cola 600 win this weekend, as crew chief Cole Pearn has brought back the winning chassis to compete in Sunday’s Bank of America 500 (12 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) race at Charlotte. His dominance in his last cameo at the 1.5-mile speedway gives him confidence — but Truex knows nothing is a guarantee.
“I think we feel like we can use a lot of what we learned here last time around to be competitive,” Truex said. “But at the same time that was a long time ago. There was a lot of races between then and now and everybody has worked on their stuff to get better — we certainly have — so for us the focus is how do we take what we learned there, apply the things we’ve learned since and try to be better overall.”
The No. 78 team is riding a wave of momentum, having won three of the last five Sprint Cup events. Two of those events — at Chicagoland and Dover — were Chase events that solidified Truex’s admittance into the second round.
“It’s been pretty incredible the last five weeks just to be part of such a historic run for our race team, so it’s been a lot of fun,” Truex said. “We’ve been working hard. It’s always fun when you’re winning races and running up front each and every week.”
But that round has come and gone, and Truex knows he has no safety net entering this next round of three races at Charlotte, Kansas and, of course, the foreboding Talladega.
“I … think if you win more than one race in the first round, you should get a bye in the next round,” Truex said with a grin.
“… It would be nice to be in this position and have those two wins kind of mean something, but at the same time you understand going in that’s the way it works and you know I think for us this is just a repeat of Chicagoland weekend, you know? We’re here, we know everybody is at zero and we’ve got to perform, so I think we’re prepared.”
While the Chase brings uncertainty for all competitors, one thing is for certain: the one-car team out of Denver is beginning to prove itself as a dominant team. They’ve proved their competitiveness by winning races, outlasted a string of bad luck in the summer and brought more sponsors on board, an area that Truex identified before the season as key for the once-single sponsor team.
The success has allowed Truex, the dark horse in the Championship 4 in last year’s Chase, to begin to shed the underdog label — and emerge as a title favorite.
“I think that ultimately we feel like we’re in a lot better position this year to go win the championship,” Truex said. “Last year, I think our goal was, ‘OK, how do we get to Homestead and what do we do to put ourselves in our best position to have a shot at it?’ I think this year it’s more, ‘OK, how do we not screw this up and make sure we get there so we can have a chance to show everybody what we’re made of?’
“So it’s a little bit different mindset, but our approach and our mentality is really the same and that’s take it one week at a time, try to do the best we can each week and hopefully at the end of the day we’ll be where we want to be.”
