Truex Ready For Richmond Turnaround

Martin Truex Jr. says his Furniture Row Racing team is overdue to show its talent on a short track.

The next opportunity for the Denver-based team to reverse its short track woes comes Saturday night in the Toyota Owners 400 at the 0.75-mile Richmond International Raceway.

“We threw two strong performances and a lot of points out the window in the last two short track races,” said Truex. “We had a couple of things happen to us that knocked us from bringing home solid finishes at both Bristol and Martinsville.”

At the half-mile Bristol Motor Speedway in mid-March, Truex’s Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet was 14^th and charging in the late stages of the race. But a broken track bar mount sent him to the garage for repairs and an eventual 36^th-place finish.

“Our Furniture Row Chevrolet kept on getting better and better at Bristol and I was confident that we had a potential Top-10 performance, before the breakage,” said Truex.

Two weeks later at the half-mile Martinsville Speedway, Truex saw another strong performance go for naught. After taking a couple of hard hits at the crowded flat track, Truex kept plugging through the damage and was moving forward. But a speeding penalty while running in the Top-10 sent him to the rear of the field just past the halfway point. He attempted another late-race charge, but a spin sent relegated him to a disappointing, 21^st-place finish.

“Martinsville was just another bad deal,” recalled Truex. “But the finishes we are capable of having are coming, and hopefully it will start this weekend at Richmond. From the way we ran at Bristol and Martinsville, we should be running up front on Saturday night.”

Truex has always had a fondness for the Richmond short track, where he has posted three career Top-10 finishes.

“Richmond is just a fun racetrack to go to and try to get a win,” he said. “Without a doubt, the whole track is difficult. It’s hard to get a car working good there. You have to turn in the center and have forward drive. Finding that balance to get the car rolling in the center and try to take care of that forward bite is something you really have to work on at Richmond.”