{"id":96408,"date":"2024-06-14T16:42:19","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T23:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=96408"},"modified":"2024-06-14T16:42:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T23:42:19","slug":"truex-jr-to-end-full-time-nascar-cup-series-career-at-close-of-2024-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/truex-jr-to-end-full-time-nascar-cup-series-career-at-close-of-2024-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Truex Jr. to End Full-Time NASCAR Cup Series Career at Close of 2024 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Martin Truex Jr. will close his full-time status in NASCAR’s Cup Series at the end of the 2024 season – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASCAR\u2019s 2017 Cup Series champion, Martin Truex Jr., current driver of Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s No. 19 Toyota Camry XSE, has announced his full-time retirement at the close of the 2024 campaign. After racing for two decades at the top of the stock car circuit, Truex Jr. , turning 44 at the close of this month, has compiled – to date – a total of 34 Cup Series victories, to go with 146 top-five results and 287 top 10s. No doubt more stellar stats will be added before the final checkered flag for the 2024 season at Phoenix Raceway this November.<\/p>\n

Appearing with team owner Joe Gibbs before this weekend\u2019s Iowa Corn 350 on the Iowa Speedway short oval, Truex Jr. acknowledged, \u201cIt\u2019s been a hell of a ride, but I\u2019m excited about the future – even though I\u2019m not sure what that looks like yet,\u201d he explained. \u201cTo be able to win a championship, something we dreamed of, I\u2019m grateful for all the guys I\u2019ve worked with, team members, crew chiefs. I won\u2019t be gone; I\u2019ll be around; we\u2019re going to do some stuff together, have some fun, enjoy life a little bit and wind down.\u201d<\/p>\n

A member of a racing family, Truex\u2019s father got him into motorsports at a young age in his native New Jersey. He raced go-karts, modifieds and, in 2000, moved to North Carolina began racing in NASCAR competition, starting with the Busch North Series and moving to what is now NASCAR\u2019s Xfinity Series, where he earned consecutive championships in 2004 and 2005.<\/p>\n

Truex Jr\u2019s full-time NASCAR Cup Series era began in 2006 with Dale Earnhardt Inc. He moved to Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and then to Michael Waltrip Racing before hooking up with Furniture Row Racing, driving the No. 78 Chevrolet for Barney Visser. It was with this team, which switched from Chevrolet to Toyota in 2016, that he earned his Cup Series title in 2017. When Furniture Row Racing folded, Truex Jr. found a home with Joe Gibbs Racing and has been with them ever since, figuring in the Cup Series championship every year.<\/p>\n

David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing\u2019s TRD U.S.A. motorsports division said, \u201cMartin has been a fierce competitor, champion and loyal friend to Toyota and TRD for over a decade. He is the only NASCAR driver to win Cup races in a Toyota Camry across three different race team organizations – a remarkable achievement. His genuine personality and consistent performance have made him a fan favorite and someone who will truly be missed on-track each week.<\/p>\n

\u201cMartin\u2019s racing achievements,\u201d Wilson continued, \u201chighlight just how talented of a racer he is, and his outstanding work off-track with the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation showcases the incredible person he continues to be. Martin is a future Hall of Famer, and someone we will always be honored to call a part of the Team Toyota family.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Truex Jr. has driven with support from Bass Pro Shops throughout his NASCAR career – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In making his announcement, which had been talked about over the internet for the past week, Truex Jr. expressed his gratitude to Johnny Morris, founder and CEO of Bass Pro Shops, who has \u201cbeen a huge supporter of mine. I wouldn\u2019t have been able to do any of the things I\u2019ve been able to without him being behind me for 21 years,\u201d Truex Jr. stated. \u201cIt\u2019s been incredible; it\u2019s been a hell of a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why now? \u201cIt just felt like the right time for me. Honestly, I\u2019ve thought about it a lot the past few seasons and just waited for that feeling in my mind to be positive, like this is okay, I\u2019m good, I want to do something else. Something just felt different this year for me. I felt like it was time to slow down and do something else\u2026 \u201c<\/p>\n

Former football coach Gibbs had to note, \u201cI think everyone knows Martin has a reputation of a real gentleman, great competitor and obviously [this is] something that\u2019s going to be a big deal for us and a big loss for our team.\u201d While Gibbs and Truex Jr. have been discussing his future for the past few months, Gibbs said he wants the focus to be on his driver\u2019s success in this final year of full-time competition, while leaving the door open to occasional competition. \u201cMartin means a lot to us. He used to sit in those competition meetings and, while he didn\u2019t say a lot, when he said it, it meant a lot to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be great to go out on top,\u201d Truex Jr. said as he contemplated his future. \u201cI\u2019m just going to do my job and do what I\u2019ve always done. I don\u2019t think anything changes here. I\u2019m here to win this weekend and I\u2019m going to do the best job I can do. I don\u2019t really overthink all of these things\u2026 I just make a decision, do my thing, go out and race and try to enjoy it and do a good job for the team. We\u2019ve got a great team, great cars and we can win some races – that\u2019s the goal!\u201d<\/p>\n

By Anne Proffit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASCAR\u2019s 2017 Cup Series champion, Martin Truex Jr., current driver of Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s No. 19 Toyota Camry XSE, has announced his full-time retirement at the close of the 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":96409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,5029],"tags":[10414,3355,2849,127,4437,3176,10170,9392,10415],"class_list":["post-96408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","tag-furniture-row-racing","tag-joe-gibbs-racing","tag-martin-truex-jr","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-toyota-camry-xse","tag-toyota-racing-development","tag-trd-u-s-a"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Martin-Truex-Jr.-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-p4Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96408"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96414,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96408\/revisions\/96414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}