CHARLOTTE — Martin Truex Jr. confirmed Wednesday that he will seek to make next year’s Daytona 500 and have former crew chief Cole Pearn atop the pit box.
Truex said that his car number will be either No. 78 or No. 56. He won the 2017 Cup championship with the No. 78. He has used the No. 56 throughout his career and calls that “my number.”
This season marks Truex’s 19th full-time season in Cup. The 44-year-old driver has 34 series victories but has never won the Daytona 500. He finished second to Denny Hamlin in 2016 by .010 seconds — the closest finish in Daytona 500 history.
Truex said at NASCAR Cup playoff media day that a deal is “all but done” for him to drive in the 2025 Daytona 500.
As for the car, Hamlin, co-owner of 23XI Racing, said Wednesday: “23XI and (Joe Gibbs Racing) are kind of looking at the options and figuring out what’s the best avenue for it. Certainly, having Martin in the 500 is going to be exciting.”
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Truex has said that he plans to drive some races next year, but relishes not having to be at the track every weekend.
“I still love racing,” he said. “I still love driving cars. Just ready to not travel 40 weekends a year. That’s the only thing.”
Partnering with Pearn will reunite a successful duo. With Pearn as his crew chief, Truex won 24 races and a championship between 2015-19. Pearn left the sport after the 2019 season.
Pearn has made brief appearances in the sport since. He was a spotter for Truex in the 2021 playoff race at the Charlotte Roval. Pearn served one race as an engineer for Truex’s team in 2022 at Sonoma.
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Truex enters this year’s playoffs seeded 15th of 16 drivers. He has finished 24th or worse in nine of the last 12 races in the regular season.
Truex’s playoff hopes were jeopardized when he crashed in the opening laps of last weekend’s Southern 500. He advanced by only six points.
“I’d certainly like to be the guy on top with the most points, right?” said Truex, who is winless in his last 42 races. “That’s the best place to be, so I don’t think we’re in a great spot, by any means.
“I think we have a good opportunity ahead of us, though. Great team and we’ve been really fast lately. Just need to execute, clean up a lot of mistakes, and a lot of that is on my end as well. We know what we need to do, we’ve done it before, and we’re excited to get going.”
