Main a race-high 228 laps, Truex appeared on his option to his first win of the 2024 season in March when a late warning despatched the race into extra time and the sphere down pit highway for brand spanking new tires.
Denny Hamlin beat Truex off pit highway for the lead after which rapidly bought round Truex on the restart and held off Joey Logano for the victory. Truex questioned whether or not Hamlin jumped the beginning, however NASCAR dominated it good.
Truex, in his remaining full-time NASCAR season, stays and not using a win this yr however nonetheless effectively positioned to make the playoffs on factors with 4 races remaining within the common season.
“It’s been an awesome monitor and it’s a ton of enjoyable,” Truex stated of Richmond. “We had an awesome run going there within the spring and thought we had a shot at profitable, then we had been down a set of tires, and the cautions didn’t go our method.
“I believe we’ve improved our program a ton and have been placing on a present at a number of the brief tracks and locations like Richmond. I hope for myself and my crew we are able to get again in Victory Lane there like we’ve accomplished earlier than.
“We had such a dominant run there within the spring and the warning got here out and our race went haywire from there. Wish to get again out entrance and keep there on Sunday.”
Martin Truex Jr, Joe Gibbs Racing, Auto-Homeowners Insurance coverage Toyota Camry
Picture by: David Rosenblum / NKP / Motorsport Photos
Truex has three profession wins, 10 top-five and 18 top-10 finishes on the Virginia brief monitor. His 1,587 laps led at Richmond is probably the most he’s led at any energetic monitor on the Cup schedule.
All three of his wins have are available in his final 11 races, whereas competing in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 19 Toyota.
“From the primary time I raced there in 2003, I’ve at all times loved the monitor,” he stated. “There was a protracted interval the place I didn’t have nice numbers there, however I felt like I liked the monitor and at all times ran effectively there and had quite a lot of loopy issues occur there all through my profession.
“As soon as I bought to Furnishings Row (Racing), we began main a ton of laps there. We additionally had a few heartbreaking finishes the place we should always have received the race however didn’t, and I questioned if it was ever going to occur.”
There will probably be a brand new change that Truex and all Cup groups should cope with in Sunday evening’s race.
To assist enhance the standard of racing, NASCAR is permitting Goodyear to supply groups use of a softer, “choice” tire within the 400-lap race.
Like they had been in a position to do on this yr’s NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway, groups may have three units of the “choice” tire at their disposal, with one set for observe and two for the race.
Managing tire put on has been a key ingredient to success at Richmond of late and use of the choice tire – or moist climate tires if circumstances warrant – might vastly alter methods.
Managing the tire put on … and tire choices
“Richmond is a really distinctive monitor, very old-fashioned monitor,” Truex stated. “Tire put on, it’s a must to handle your stuff and that actually performs into my strengths.
“It’s going to be totally different this time round with the tire mixture from what we had within the spring. Going to have to determine the way to recapture it and hopefully give you one thing that labored prefer it has up to now.”
“You’ll should see a really particular set of circumstances to determine to place the comfortable tire on. There’s nonetheless the potential that it might make some fascinating issues occur, it simply will depend on how the race performs out.”
