By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
With five top-five finishes in 2019, Martin Truex Jr. has already hit Victory lane three times.
That may not seem significant in Joe Gibbs Racing equipment, but as Truex would atest, luck has been aligning performance in the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
Comparing to 2018 with Furniture Row Racing, Truex scored 20 top-five finishes across the season and won only four of them.
Now, with wins in three of the last five races in 2019, where has the sudden trait of excecution been coming from?
“We’re very well-rounded,” Truex said Friday at Pocono Raceway. “We can run at a lot of different race tracks well. Obviously by the places we’ve won.
“I don’t know that the races have played out in our favor by any means. I just feel like we’ve just been really good in three of the last five races. Places like Kansas we didn’t run very well, so it’s different week to week. You just have to continue to work hard and put it all together.”
Pit road errors are a dime a dozen during a weekend. For Truex, the No. 19 crew have compiled clean pit stops that have maintained track position for Truex for the end of races.
“The pit crew stands out in my mind as a big player in this,” he said. “Last year we had a lot of issues and issues cost wins and issues cost top fives. We haven’t been having any of those (knock on wood) and the guys are doing a great job so I’m really proud of them.
“They struggled early and they’re a new group together, which it takes them a while to get going. Hopefully we can just keep that up. Great team and great race cars and engines – it takes everything. No mechanical failures and nothing crazy happening lately. Just being able to put it all out there.”
With top-class mechanical parts and a reliable pit crew, Truex has also seen a beneift from the new aero package in 2019, one that has suited his driving style well through the first half of the regular season.
“It is a lot different, there’s no question,” he said. “But places that we’ve had success before, it seems to translate a little bit. A lot of that is driver confidence and understanding the race track.”
With two prior wins at Pocono, Truex hopes the momentum trumps the difficulties to come at the Tricky Triangle, rolling off from 20th starting position.
“Hopefully we have the right approach,” he said. “Being on a roll, it’s just a credit to the team and the hard work finally coming together. Doing all the little things right. You know the pit crew has really come on strong and gelled as a unit and it takes everything at this level to win races and to put yourself in position consistently.
“Coming together as a group and finding that momentum. It’s one of those things in this sport that’s really hard to find. Once you do, you want to do all you can to hang onto it because you never know when it’s going to go away.”