This is the third and final piece in a multi-part series about Martin Truex Jr. A future NASCAR Hall of Famer, the former Joe Gibbs Racing driver has retired from full-time competition and will be remembered for his many accomplishments, including a dominating 2017 championship run. The latter was the primary focus of this series.
Martin Truex Jr. spent many years in the early part of his NASCAR Cup Series career feeling envious of drivers who arrived at the racetrack knowing they could win. What, Truex thought, did he have to do to get into that position? It turns out that signing with Furniture Row Racing and being a driver that Toyota wanted to reunite with was the answer.
Truex became one of those drivers he once envied in 2016, and drove to a Cup Series championship in 2017 in dominating fashion. “It was just amazing to be able to drove those cars and have that team,” Truex told RACER. “It was just clicking and effortless.
We’d just go do it. It’s crazy to even think about, and you think it’s going to go on forever and you get used to that, and when things aren’t going that way it’s harder to deal with. But just an amazing year.
A great group of guys.” It’s been seven years since Truex hoisted the championship trophy. It proved to be the only one in his career, as he retired from full competition after the 2024 season.
But if a driver can only win the Cup Series title once, doing so in the fashion Truex and his No. 78 team did would be hard to pass up.
