RICHMOND, Va. – Ben Rhodes tried to take a measure of relief in the small consolations after a rocky Saturday night at Richmond Raceway. His title defense in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series was still intact, and so was his No. 99 ThorSport Racing Toyota – the one with a championship pedigree.
Nine of the first 11 finishers in Saturday’s Worldwide Express 250 were playoff-eligible drivers, led by race winner Chandler Smith. The lone outlier among the postseason field was Rhodes, who struggled to an 18th-place finish, two laps off the pace.
“We just got to go home and take solace in the fact that the truck’s in one piece,” said Rhodes, who started 14th and made little headway from the drop of the green flag. “This is our Phoenix truck from last year that won the championship, so the truck isn’t the problem. It’s a fast truck. We just had some issues with components and pieces that were on it tonight. Brake issues plagued us from the time we unloaded, and I knew from the first corner on the track that I didn’t like it, but there’s nothing you can really do at that point, you can’t really change all your brakes out, you don’t really want to go to the backup. We just had no clue it would be this bad. So we’re just gonna diagnose it and see what happened.”
Rhodes finished out of the top 10 at both stage breaks, then went one lap down on Lap 132. Smith lapped Rhodes again with 65 laps remaining as the No. 99 Toyota continued to fade.
Crew chief Rich Lushes, in his second season paired with Rhodes, confirmed that a new brake package for the 0.75-mile Richmond track was the culprit.
“We fought a brake issue all night, and I just feel like that was a source of all of our issues,” Lushes said. “Obviously, you can’t get into a corner, you can’t finish the corner, so we’ll go back and assess what we did. We have a pretty good idea what we did, tried something a little different tonight. I guess playoffs isn’t the time to try something, but we’ll see. We’ll go on to Kansas and still got a good cushion right now. So we’ll go to Kansas, have a good race and move on to the next round.”
That points buffer took a bit of a dent entering the playoff-opening Round of 10’s final race, scheduled Sept. 9 at Kansas Speedway. Two drivers will be eliminated from the 10-driver field at Kansas, and Rhodes ranks seventh in the pecking order with a 21-point edge over the cutoff line.
“I’ve been there before, so I’m not scared,” Rhodes said, smiling through the disappointment. “I mean, we can run like a bag of (expletive) again next week and, you know, we should have enough points to make it through. This is about as terrible as I’ve ever ran before. I told them at one point, I can’t repeat what I said. It was a terrible truck at that one point in the race, and we could run just as bad. I can take solace knowing that we can run just as bad — we should never run this bad — but we have enough points to make it in as long as we don’t do anything stupid.
“The problem is, when you do run this bad, you run around people that make a lot of bad decisions, and you can easily get caught up in something that you shouldn’t even be a part of. So again, we’ve just got to go back and find out what happened. There’s no excuse for running this terrible.”
Smith took charge of the second event in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoffs when he won the race off pit road under caution on lap 75 — during the break between the first and second stages.
That was the ballgame. Smith led the final 175 laps through two cautions, one for the second stage break and one for an accident in Turn 1 involving Nick Leitz and playoff driver Carson Hocevar.
With his third victory of the year and fifth of his career, Smith earned automatic advancement to the second round of the playoffs, joining Grant Enfinger, who won the playoff opener at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
“Hell of a job!” Smith exulted after crossing the finish line 2.790 seconds ahead of runner-up and Kyle Busch Motorsports teammate John Hunter Nemechek. “This truck was really good — I’m not going to lie.”
It also helped that the track came to Smith after a first stage dominated by pole winner Ty Majeski, who led 73 straight laps after Smith led the first one.
Majeski won the first stage by more than four seconds, but his jackman, Paul Steele, fell in front of the No. 66 Toyota as he sprinted toward the right side of the truck. Majeski was hard on the brakes to avoid injury to Steele, but the miscue cost him two positions he never regained.
“I saw him trip, and I slammed on the brakes so I didn’t hit him,” said Majeski, who finished third. “He did a great job — he’s actually first-time tonight — he recovered well, really salvaged that pit stop. He rebounded and had a couple great stops. That’s what teamwork is all about.”
Smith’s crew was exceptional. On all three pit stops, the No. 18 team got him off pit road first, negating Nemechek’s advantage of the number one pit stall.
“I feel like the track just came to us there at the very end, especially Stage 2,” Smith said. “My pit crew did a bad-ass job — excuse my language — but they deserve that recognition. They did an amazing job, got me the lead, and we never gave it up.”
Nemechek thought the final caution for the incident in Turn 1 cost him a chance to contend for the victory. During the long green-flag run before the yellow, he had cut into Smith’s lead, and at one point pulled alongside his teammate before the frontrunners cleared traffic.
“I felt I had saved my stuff a little better on that run,” Nemechek said. “I was running him down pretty quick.”
The lead-lap trucks pitted for tires under the caution, however, and Smith pulled away once again after the final restart on Lap 223 of 250.
Enfinger finished fourth in a No. 23 Chevrolet that didn’t have the speed to contend for the win. Non-playoff drivers Corey Heim and Taylor Gray followed in fifth and sixth, respectively.
Three-time series champion Matt Crafton came home seventh and moved above the playoff cut line, three points ahead of Hocevar, who dropped to ninth in the standings, despite salvaging a 10th-place finish.
The bottom two drivers in the standings will be eliminated from the playoffs after the next race on Sept. 9 at Kansas Speedway.
NOTE: Post-race inspection was completed without major issue, confirming Smith as the winner. His No. 18 Toyota had one unsecured lug nut.
See where your favorite Cup Series driver will pit for Sunday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM Radio).
RICHMOND, Va. — Daniel Suárez says he’s close to taking his name off the NASCAR Cup Series’ Silly Season uncertainty list, nearing the final stages of sealing his return to Trackhouse Racing.
Suárez’s remarks came Saturday before on-track activity at Richmond Raceway, where the 24th of 26 regular-season races takes place with Sunday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM).
“Yeah, we’re very close,” Suárez said. “I’m gonna be honest, I haven’t even paid a lot of attention to it. I’m so focused right now on the playoffs and making my team stronger. But I know that my manager and people from Trackhouse are very, very close. We have never had doubts about where we’re at on those kinds of things. I’m just working on a couple of details. But yeah, we’re getting it finished. It’s not done yet, but it’s close.”
Suárez is in his second season with the No. 99 Trackhouse Chevrolet team. His Year 2 has been highlighted by his first Cup Series win, a breakthrough at Sonoma Raceway in June that landed him a postseason berth.
Suárez was Trackhouse’s first driver when the organization co-owned by Justin Marks and Pitbull entered Cup Series competition in 2021. Since then, Trackhouse has grown to a two-car operation with teammate Ross Chastain in the No. 1 Chevy. Together, the organization has seen a spike in its performance, savoring three victories between the two drivers this season.
The growth has been rapid, and Chastain said he’s looking forward to the continuity with Suárez as his teammate.
“We’re building, so that just goes without saying anything else,” Chastain said. “Like we want to keep building into the future of what we’ve got, what we’ve already done. So yeah, all on board with when they get it all worked out.”
RICHMOND, Va. – Christopher Bell said that he made a mistake in sparking a late-race crash last weekend with Ross Chastain, but that he stood his ground in an effort to race him as he has been raced in the past.
Six days after the crash that ruined the results for both Bell and Chastain at Michigan, both drivers explained their sides of the conflict before Saturday’s qualifying session at Richmond Raceway, site of Sunday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM). Both drivers led multiple laps at Michigan, but Chastain wound up 24th and Bell took 26th.
Bell had made a blocking maneuver to stem the advances of Chastain’s No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet in Michigan’s sweeping fourth turn. The two collided and Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota caught the worst of the damage with the outside retaining wall. Bell owned up to the initial contact, but noted Chastain’s reputation for hard-nosed racing that figured into his on-track tactics.
“I mean, made a mistake and misjudged on being clear and not being clear,” Bell said. “But with that being said, I’ve been put in that exact same position on the flip side, probably 30, 40, maybe 50 times this year and, you know, I’ve lifted. So I made a mistake, but he had an option to lift and cut us both a break, and he didn’t and we wrecked.”
Chastain had made a more recent pit stop, and Bell said he was aware that his rival was racing with fresher tires. Even with that understanding, Bell admitted he “was trying to make his life harder” and that Chastain’s past factored in.
“Absolutely,” Bell said. “This sport is a game of respect, and I try and race people how they race me.”
Chastain took that in self-deprecating stride.
“It looked like I was driving his car. Blocking all over the place,” Chastain said with a grin. “Yeah, I think he just made one too many blocks, and I was to his right-rear.”
The damage was one thing, but the ensuing caution period also turned the tide for Chastain and teammate Daniel Suárez.
“I mean, honestly, if I just would have lifted, right, we would have been better for me and Daniel, and Christopher, right?” Chastain said. “There’s really no circumstance where we need a caution right there, so when he gave me the option of lift or crash, I should have lifted. I just thought I had a lane to his right. I should have just pushed him instead of trying to get to his right-rear.”
Should the scenario present itself anew, Bell said he would weigh the circumstances.
“I think it depends on the situation,” Bell said. “And at that moment, we were racing for the win, and I felt like it was going to help my case to win to slow him up. And you know, if we’re racing in the playoffs, and I have to be more mindful of my points position, obviously, my thoughts are different. But in that situation, it was essentially win or bust, and I thought that was going to help me win the race.”
The pole is his third of 2022 and first since Sonoma Raceway in June. Larson was the final qualifier in the second round of qualifying, besting Ross Chastain’s lap at 116.883 mph to lead the field to the green flag for the Federated Auto Parts 400 on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“Even though I got into (Turn) 1 way too hard and sideways, I’m imagining that’s probably where I made up my time,” Larson said. “Just getting it in really deep, and I think getting it under control before I got to the exit probably is where I made up the lap time.
“I don’t know, though. It could be (Turns) 3 and 4. Who knows? But I felt like I got in a little deep — too deep for sure — but I think it worked out in the end.”
Completing the top five on the starting grid will be Denny Hamlin (116.485 mph), William Byron (116.470 mph) and Alex Bowman (116.384 mph).
Martin Truex Jr., a three-time winner at Richmond, will roll off sixth (116.204 mph) ahead of Cole Custer (116.139 mph), Brad Keselowski (116.104), Erik Jones 116.064 mph) and Ryan Blaney (115.785 mph).
Ahead of qualifying, five teams were penalized for failing pre-qualifying technical inspection, including Keselowski. All five teams each saw one crew member ejected and lost the ability to select their pit stall for Sunday’s race.
Aric Almirola was fourth-fastest in practice behind Austin Cindric, but both Fords struggled in qualifying as early hot-lappers. They qualified 32nd and 33rd, respectively.
PRACTICE
Ross Chastain was fastest in practice, posting the quickest lap at an average of 117.514 mph. Behind him were Tyler Reddick, Austin Cindric, Aric Almirola and Martin Truex Jr.
Perhaps more telling for Chastain, however, was where else he was fastest — on the consecutive 10-lap average sheet. Chastain was quickest of the 29 cars who ran 10 straight laps with an average speed of 115.419 mph. Almirola was second over the course of 10 laps, followed by Chase Elliott, Truex and Hamlin.
Truex enters Richmond trailing Ryan Blaney for the final playoff position by 19 points. While Truex was fourth-fastest on the 10-lap averages, Blaney was only ninth.
The Nos. 6, 16, 17, 31 and 38 cars all failed pre-qualifying technical inspection twice on Saturday afternoon, resulting in the ejection of one crew member per team at Richmond Raceway.
NASCAR confirmed the ejections of the following crew members:
No. 6 — Car chief, Nick Case
No. 16 — Car chief, Andy Suess
No. 17 — Engineer, Travis Peterson
No. 31 — Car chief, Jaron Antley
No. 38 — Car chief, Lucas Tucker
Both RFK Racing entries as well as the two Kaulig Racing teams were penalized. Kaulig’s Nos. 16 and 31 cars, piloted this weekend by Noah Gragson and Justin Haley, respectively, were also penalized at Indianapolis Motor Speedway two weeks ago.
In addition to losing the aforementioned crew members, each team will also lose pit-stall selection ahead of Sunday’s race (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway
(⏰ 3 p.m. ET | 📺 USA Network, NBC Sports App | 📻 MRN, SiriusXM)
Everything you need to know for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond, the 24th regular-season event of the 2022 campaign.
Race-day info 📝
Where: Richmond, Virginia Green flag: 3:17 p.m. ET | Full weekend schedule TV/Radio: USA, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio | Full TV schedule The purse: $7,144,995 Forecast: A slight chance of showers after 2 p.m. ET. Mostly sunny, with a high near 83 degrees, according to NOAA.gov | Weather tracker Race distance: 400 laps | 300 miles Stages: 70 | 230 | 400 Pit-road speed: 40 mph Caution car speed: 45 mph Richmond 101: Get the full lowdown
Starting lineup: Larson on the pole
Pit stalls: Where drivers will pit Cars to the rear: Nos. 21, 78 (unapproved adjustments)
UPDATE: Kurt Busch out again
Key things to watch 🔑
Big story line
It has been the story line all week and it is no different here. Will there be a 16th winner? Kevin Harvick’s momentous win at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday left two strong playoff contenders straddling the cutline: Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. Unfortunately for Ryan Blaney, the timing this week lines up perfectly for Truex to pounce — at least that is what history tells us. Truex has three wins in the last six races at Richmond and has led an imposing 1,285 laps at the Virginia short track. Blaney, on the other hand, has just two top-10 finishes in 12 starts, though they came in the last two races. The good news for Blaney fans is that his improvements here have been remarkable as of late. But will it be enough to hang on to his 19-point lead?
Who’s hot? Who’s not?
After breaking the streak of 65 consecutive races without a win, Kevin Harvick is in prime position to become a title favorite down the stretch. The momentum the No. 4 team has found recently is very notable, reeling off five top 10s in the last eight races and storming their way to Victory Lane. Don’t expect them to slow down at Richmond this weekend, either. Harvick and company finished runner-up in the spring race and have finished inside the top eight in 12 of the last 15 races. Harvick’s got the hot hand.
Though Tyler Reddick has won two of the last six races, the No. 8 team’s performance on ovals has been underwhelming compared to their success on road courses. Reddick has three finishes of 21st or worse, including a pair of DNFs, alongside the two wins and heads to Richmond where he has yet to register a top 10 in the Cup Series. Sure, a pair of wins leaves Reddick and company comfortably heading into the playoffs. But with more ovals than road courses in each of the rounds, they need to flip the switch. Fortunately, Reddick finished 12th in the spring race so there is definitely something to build on there.
Driving under the radar
If you haven’t been paying attention to racing at Richmond, this driver to watch out for Sunday may come as a big surprise: Austin Dillon. Dillon raced his No. 3 Chevrolet to a 10th-place finish in the spring and now has five top 10s in the last seven races at Richmond. Recently, he has been one of the best here. With all the talk about other drivers a bit nearer to the cutline, Dillon winning this weekend is certainly not out of the question. And as the 16th, and perhaps most unlikely, winner, it would shake up the playoff picture considerably.
Practice and qualifying
The fact that both Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions went largely without incident revealed how much better handle drivers have on the Next Gen car compared to this year’s spring race at Richmond. Most expected the Toyotas to come out the gate in dominant form, but it was the Chevrolets and Fords who shared the majority of the afternoon’s success. Kyle Larson earned his third Busch Light Pole Award of the season, besting Ross Chastain at the buzzer with a 23.042-second lap time. Hendrick Motorsports claimed three of the top five spots on Sunday’s starting grid. Chastain set the pace in practice, followed by Tyler Reddick, Austin Cindric, Aric Almirola, Martin Truex Jr. and spring winner Denny Hamlin. | Full recap here
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
Race-day staples ✅
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• Paint Scheme Preview: Vivid paint schemes for Virginia | Pick a favorite • Power Rankings: Denny Hamlin is on the rise | Updated drivers rankings • NASCAR betting: BetMGM odds for Sunday’s race | Underdogs, value bets • Fantasy Fastlane: Can Martin Truex Jr. turn the tide? | Top plays, sleepers • Bubble Watch: Which drivers are close to the cutline? | Read more
• Backseat Drivers: Is Bubba Wallace too hard on himself? | Watch the debate
• Stacking Pennies: Kyle Petty joins the show | Listen to full interview
Catch the pack 💨
Read up on the top headlines from the week leading up to Sunday’s race.
• Martin Truex Jr.: Driver opens up on Richmond success, more | Read more
• Driver analysis: Does Ryan Blaney or Martin Truex Jr. have the edge? | Read more
• Jordan Brand: New 23XI scheme for the No. 45 at Richmond | Read more
• At-track etiquette: Justin Haley opens up on growing fanbase, driver interaction | Read more
• New facility: NASCAR Productions center set to begin construction | Read more
• New signing: Noah Gragson inks 2023 deal with Petty GMS | Read more
• Block party: Bubba Wallace, NASCAR host event at Richmond | Read more
• Richmond president speaks: ‘I want Richmond to win’ | Read more
• Playoff breakdown: How the field looks entering Richmond | Read more
• Austin Dillon: Inside his role as Carolina Cowboys’ GM | Read more
• Justin Haley: Running Xfinity Series race with Kaulig Racing at Daytona | Read more
• Silly Season: Driver moves, changes are heating up | Track them here
• Get your tickets: Tickets are now on sale for the 2023 Busch Light Clash | Read more
Get in on the action 💰
Think you know NASCAR? Put your mettle to the test with gaming, fantasy.
• BetMGM: Public likes Truex to spoil Hamlin’s homecoming | Read more
• The Action Network: Odds, picks and predictions for Richmond | Read more
• Backseat Bets: Can Kevin Harvick take down Denny Hamlin? | Watch the segment
• Play it LIVE: Full guide to 2022 NASCAR Fantasy Live game | Get the FAQ
• Going all the way: 2022 Cup Series championship odds | See them here
Racing twice at Richmond ✌️
There is so much NASCAR history at Richmond Raceway, so let’s break down some of the basics.
• Do you remember?: Memorable moments at Richmond | Relive them
• Earlier in 2022: Denny Hamlin takes Round 1 at Richmond | Full race recap
• Race Rewind: Hamlin pulls through for home-state win | Watch highlights
• Last year at Richmond 2: Back to front, Truex puts on a show | Watch highlights
Fast facts ⏩
Hard-hitting, race-relevant statistics, brought to you by the experts at Racing Insights.
• Chase Elliott will lock up the Regular Season Championship by leaving Richmond with a 121-point lead. • Ryan Blaney lost 52 points to Martin Truex Jr. in the last four races in the cutline battle. • Truex finished top five in the last seven Richmond races, the longest streak since Rusty Wallace had seven. • Four of the last eight races in 2022 were won by drivers getting their first win of the season. • The longest active top-10 streak is four races by Bubba Wallace. The longest by any driver this year is six.
Say what? 🎙
Notable quotes from the stars of the sport heading into Sunday’s race.
• “Just the atmosphere, the people. I think that’s the most important thing is the people and being able to feel comfortable at an organization, that’s pretty unique as it is, I feel like. JR Motorsports, it’s been a home for me the last four years and the leadership and the same qualities that they really instill in their company, I feel like that’s what we’ve seen here at GMS. So looking forward to the opportunity.” — Noah Gragson, driver of the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet in the Xfinity Series on signing the 2023 deal with Petty GMS Motorsports
• “I think it’s definitely been a letdown for me personally. I wanted to come out and do a really good job and I feel like I made a lot of mistakes early. Some things I feel like I did well early, but I don’t know. I don’t know what the grade would be. I haven’t really thought a lot about that. I think the biggest thing is just trying to build off of every weekend. Last weekend at Michigan was so tough because we just missed it in practice and qualifying and then you get into the race and get crashed early and don’t have a chance to really build off of anything. I’m just trying to get better and better each weekend.” — Harrison Burton, driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford, on his 2022 season
• “We’re going to show up and fight like we always do. We know Richmond is a good opportunity for us and we want to make the most of that opportunity, but we don’t really change who we are at this point in the season. James (Small, crew chief) and everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing are doing everything we can and that’s all I can ask for as a driver. I have a lot of confidence going to Richmond and know what we’re capable of.” — Martin Truex Jr., driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
DAYTONA BEACH, FL — NASCAR announced today a new multiyear partnership with leading full-service logistics partner Worldwide Express, naming the company the “Official Logistics Partner of NASCAR.” The news comes on the day of Worldwide Express’ entitlement race, the Worldwide Express 250 for Carrier Appreciation at Richmond Raceway.
Since becoming a primary team sponsor earlier this year, Worldwide Express has expanded its presence in NASCAR, signing on as the entitlement sponsor for this weekend’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, announced earlier this summer. In addition to the NASCAR Official Partnership, Worldwide Express has also been designated the “Official Logistics Partner of Richmond Raceway.”
“As a full-service logistics provider, Worldwide Express knows the amount of hard work and dedication our teams, tracks and employees put into each race weekend,” said Daryl Wolfe, Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer at NASCAR. “Our sport is always on the go, so we’re thrilled to welcome a company like Worldwide Express who knows what it takes to deliver a winning race weekend to our fans.”
Worldwide Express and its sister brands, GlobalTranz and Unishippers, began partnerships earlier this year with NASCAR teams Trackhouse Racing and Niece Motorsports, with the company serving as a primary sponsor for both teams.
“We are incredibly excited to build on our successful involvement in NASCAR at the team and race level to now serve as the Official Logistics Partner for NASCAR as well as for Richmond Raceway,” said Worldwide Express President Rob Rose. “We are uniquely suited to help manage the logistical complexity that NASCAR and its teams deal with each week to host and compete in world-class races. We look forward to partnering with NASCAR to deliver exhilarating race weekends over the coming years.”
Founded in 1992, the Worldwide Express family of brands has become a top-ranked, full-service logistics provider and the second-largest privately held freight brokerage in North America, with customers spanning from SMBs to the Fortune 100. More than 115,000 shippers benefit from enhanced visibility and efficiency for their supply chains thanks to the company’s market-leading solutions for parcel, less-than-truckload (LTL) and truckload shipping and managed transportation services, which are driven by proprietary technology, unique data assets and business intelligence capabilities. To learn more about Worldwide Express, visit wwex.com and for more information on Worldwide Express Racing, visit www.wwexracing.com.
RICHMOND, Va. — The frenzy that’s gripped the NASCAR Cup Series playoff picture has been escalating for weeks as new winners have checked into Victory Lane. When Kevin Harvick raised that winner count to a lofty 15 last weekend at Michigan International Speedway, that frenzy went into fevered-pitch mode.
The premise that one spot in the already crowded 16-driver postseason grid would go to either Ryan Blaney or Martin Truex Jr. — both winless this year but in the top five of Cup Series points — has some worthwhile consideration. But Truex agrees that the possibilities are a bit more wide open, and that a new winner not named Blaney or Truex would flip up the script on those comparisons.
“I mean, it just depends on what happens, right? I mean, if we have a 16th winner, then the battle of points between him and I means nothing,” Truex told NASCAR.com. “So it’s all just circumstantial of what happens, and again, that’s what makes it tougher. You don’t know exactly what you have to do. Do you just throw caution to the wind and try to keep throwing Hail Marys and hope that something works out? Or do you just try to do what you’ve done all year, be consistent, score all the points you can throughout the day and get the best finish possible? I think at the end of the day, that makes the most sense. And that’s kind of the way we’re looking at it.”
Truex opened up on his postseason chances and his career outlook beyond this season in a wide-ranging conversation Friday, the day before on-track activity opened at Richmond Raceway. His playoff pursuit gets its next opportunity in Sunday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM) at the 0.75-mile Richmond oval, a track that has been friendly territory in recent years for him and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates.
Truex’s Richmond excellence has sprouted in a dominant stretch of seven consecutive top-five finishes there, with three victories for the No. 19 Toyota team sprinkled in that span. That recent run of success has been shared by Coach Joe Gibbs’ overall organization, which has nine wins in the last 13 Richmond races.
“At the end of the day, if you’re at the front, you’re doing the best thing you can do,” Truex says, noting that he’ll likely forgo in-race updates from the team on the progress of other playoff hopefuls. “So that’s our plan, and I feel good going to Richmond that we can be a little bit better than we were in the spring and hopefully be in position to go win that one. It’s been a great track. I love going there, and at this point in time, I feel like it’s one of the best places we could go to make this happen.”
When the Cup Series raced earlier this season at Richmond, it marked the debut of the Next Gen car at a track that small — the Los Angeles Coliseum’s Busch Light Clash exhibition excluded. Despite some initial concern that the new car model would mean a starting-over point for teams in building up notes and data at Richmond, JGR was able to find performance that was similar to its previous-generation success.
Teammate Denny Hamlin prevailed that day, and the three remaining Joe Gibbs Racing drivers all notched top-10 finishes. Truex’s tally included 80 laps led, a Stage 2 win and a fourth-place result.
Logan Riely | Getty Images
“This car has been real difficult to try to take past history or to take, ‘OK, we’re always good here, right? How do we take what we know before with the other car and the way we approached it? How do we do that with the Next Gen car? What does that look like? Does it mean anything at all?'” Truex said. “And I think what we’ve seen is instances of where it’s helped a little bit at certain tracks, and Richmond is probably certainly one of them where our approach, kind of the way we approach that track seemed to translate slightly.
“But I mean, I’ll be honest, before we started the race there in the spring, I’m like, I have no idea how good we’re going to be. I thought we were pretty good in practice, but you just never know. So I think going back now, it’s another day race, which normally we’d have a day race, night race that makes it a little challenging for using your notes and all that. We’ll be able to use a little bit more of what we did in the spring, and hopefully we can just make the right tweaks from there of OK, what did we need to do better, and can we make those proper changes.”
While the playoff outlook is still not settled, Truex’s contract situation for 2023 is. The 42-year-old driver announced his return to the No. 19 Camry on June 24, ending weeks of speculation that he might step away from a full-time Cup Series career that stretches back to 2006.
Truex said that confirming his return was less about removing a personal burden than it was providing assurance for those close to him on the No. 19 group.
“I don’t know if it really was a relief, other than just, it’s always nice to know your plans,” Truex said. “I think mostly for the team, right? The team guys and all that just, they don’t have those questions of whether, what are they going to do next year, who are they working with and all that. So it’s always nice for them. I think, for me, it was easy to think about that for a couple days a week and then race and I didn’t really have any problem. I feel like I was doing my job the way I always do so. Mostly for the team, I’d say.”
As for where those career decisions go beyond next year, Truex hasn’t settled on a timetable there, either, but says he now has a better understanding of what the ramifications would be when that decision time arrives.
“It’s kind of like, when you make those decisions, you kind of just want to forget about it for a while, and I’m, I guess a procrastinator in general, so I like to put things off,” Truex says. “So I’ll probably be in the same boat next year, it’d be midseason and they’ll be asking me what am I doing, and I’ll be like, I gotta figure it out.
“So I think for me, the helpful thing was just, really throughout my career, I’d never thought about … I’ve never really took the time to think, you know, what does my career look like? How long am I going to do this? What do I need to understand to make the decision, you know, what is it gonna feel like to make that decision? So I think it was good just to talk to people and think about it for a while and kind of understand for the future, if nothing else, for when I do have to make the decision for real, or when I do actually say that I’m going to stop racing full time. So I think for that perspective, it was helpful, but it’s still going to be hard, you know, depending on circumstances. And I think for me, we still have a great team and I know we can win races and you know, if we can just get in the playoffs, I know we can go far. We just, we’ve got to get that win.”
Truex is still actively adding chapters to his Cup Series career, and it’s an impressive one even in its in-progress form. He has three national-series titles to his name — Cup in 2017 and the Xfinity Series crowns in 2004-05 — and his 31 Cup Series wins rank sixth among active drivers, placing him among some legendary company with NASCAR Hall of Fame bona fides on the all-time win list.
Truex says he hasn’t given much time to considering his Hall-worthy credentials or the sum of his NASCAR career as it rolls on, week to week. But he says he feels fortunate to have left a mark on the sport, one that carries on his family’s rich racing heritage.
“I’ve never really thought much about it. Times like that when you’re at the Hall of Fame, et cetera, it kind of hits you that, hey, there’s a chance of this happening,” Truex says. “I think for me, for my last name, for the Truex name in racing, all the years we’ve been racing, I think to be able to win a championship and win a lot of these big Cup races, I think has been probably one of the coolest things. For me, I don’t really get too caught up in what I’ve done and what it means to people, but having that Truex name up there is really special to me, and with all my dad’s put into racing throughout my career and his and all that.
“So definitely cool, and it’d be nice obviously, if we had a few of those championships that slipped out of our fingertips. A few of those seconds were tough to swallow, but at the end of the day, it’s been awesome. And I have to say that, going back to when I moved south to run in the Busch (now Xfinity) Series in ’04, I would have never thought that I could have done what I’ve done. So I’ve been blessed, been lucky to have great teams and work with a lot of great people. And I’m still doing that now, so I’m enjoying that part.”
