"My Daytona 500 Deal is Done" Martin Truex Jr Shares

day kind of uh I don't know just hopefully get our first win here you know that's kind of the only thing that's on my mind or it's been on my mind this week so see how that goes you mentioned pretty quickly that uh the day 2500 might still be on your radar for next year is that something that's progressed at all is that something that's still on your mind that you would like to do yeah um I I mean I think it's all but done but till they say the word then it's you know always up in the air so should be it should work out why that one why are you so excited about that uh I don't know know just uh you it's the biggest race of the year we've never wed and it'd been fun to have another shot so yeah and that would be 2311 then I couldn't say come on I mean coach is supposed coach is trying to figure it out so I I'll leave it up to him where were you when you you heard the penalty this week for Denny um I were your initial thoughts yeah it's crazy you know I mean obviously uh it was a big oop but um yeah got to feel for them you know them guys him and his team just because it's literally had nothing to do with with them so uh it's a tough one in that situation like you said this had nothing to do with d they the team they didn't do anything at along is there any way that NASCAR could issue a penalty like Toyota or the OEM itself and not hit the 11 team who you know didn't really do something yeah I don't I don't really know somebody else was asking me you know how do why did they penalize them I'm like cuz they didn't know what else to do like it's it was the 11s engine so I guess that's what kind of put him in that spot I don't know that's a really tough one I mean it was obviously an honest mistake because they came forward with it but um I I don't know really what's right it doesn't feel right but somebody's got to take the fall so I don't I don't know how else you do it and it's tough because you can't trash Toyota because you understand and plus Toyota is your manufacturer so a guy can't even get frustrated really yeah I mean I think if you ask like it doesn't matter who it is probably everybody feels feels for them other team tees you know sometimes guys get caught with stuff and you're like yeah well you know they they deserved it and you didn't you don't feel bad for them but in this case I'm sure across the board everyone's like well this is it really sucks you know um they have a great season going they have a lot of points and a lot of those points just went out the window for something they didn't do as a team so it's a tough one for sure if they had to be penalized would you have preferred a disqualification given who finished second I honestly never even thought of that but um maybe that would have been better yeah I don't know but uh yeah I don't know it's just a tough situation for everyone so uh hate to Hate to comment on it too well you know too much I know you would like to win but like is a lot of tomorrow just mitigating damage control don't get involved in a crash and don't give away points I feel like if you race that way here you end up in a crash so you know we're just going to go race as hard as we can and do the best we can and um you you need to I feel like with these cars here here now you need to stay towards the front of if you can and especially for the end of the race it's the only place where you got to be at the front to win it so um yeah I think for us we we've had our best races here we stayed near the front in this car and then when we've had trouble for whatever reason Pit Stop wise or whatever got in the back that's why we get crashed so yeah just need to uh race hard and hope for the best that's all you can do here where do you feel like the 19 team is right now as you guys uh prepare for this playoff run um we've got a lot of potential but we're not quite uh we're not quite finishing the deal so it's been for numerous reasons last week it was my fault you know just trying too hard at the end of the race and stepped over the edge and we should have ran fourth and instead we were 24th so that one's on me but um yeah just in general just consistently fast which is good if we can just put everything else together you know we're going to we're going to be in good shape it's just been uh it's been frustrating the last couple months what do the light of the end what does the light at the end of the tunnel uh feel like to you in the sense that you don't really know till you get there what it's going to make you more wanting to make sure everything is done right or Freer or what what have you found out um you know for me I think just um having the opportunity to close out the year on a high note um we definitely have that potential we got tons of speed that we showed last week and you know until stage three I thought we were you know in shape to win the race and then we just our car just balance got away from us so we're right there we've been knocking on the door um just it'd be nice to win a couple before it's over do you look at Darlington as a place to really kind of get find this team's footing before the playoffs start just to build momentum in the right direction yeah I mean I I think it's not really that we don't have momentum we're just not getting finishes so we you know like I said we've had speed and morale is good things are going well we're just not not executing in every you know facet that we need to so um just keep trying hard and bringing fast cars to the track and hopefully uh we can all just all be a little bit better with the Arlington being the uh the cut off race instead of the first playoff race do you think that changes is the dynamic of that race at all probably not I mean I think darlington's such a long race such a grueling race Tire wise car management wise you it's it's hard to say you won't you know you can't say you won't see hail Mary there but the potential for it is a lot less than most places so um you typically there's five or six seven cars that run in the top 10 all day and and end up battling um I don't see it being one of the guys outside the playoffs but you never know you said you know you you talked about the possibility of maybe doing the Daya 500 next February but you know whether or not that happens when we get to that point are you looking at maybe a long period of just not racing for a bit or have you thought about maybe doing xinity truck or some other Series yeah I thought about other stuff it's I don't have anything planned yet so it's all just thought process now and figuring out what the options are and um you know picking what races I want to do but but the Dayton of 500 you would say is a distinct possibility I feel like it's pretty much done going to happen so uh it's not a guarantee yet but I think it's pretty close how different if at all did the new shark fin feel on the other side of the car no different you're not going to be able to tell anything till we all get out there so um hopefully it's not too different but you never know