Truex Jr. Pleased with Transition

BROOKLYN, Mich. – The transition from Chevrolet to Toyota and an alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing has gone well for Martin Truex Jr.

The Furniture Row Racing driver has already won a race this year and will have an opportunity to run for the Sprint Cup Series championship for a second straight season. The change in manufacturers as well as moving from a Richard Childress racing alliance to JGR has not slowed down the team.

“It’s been a really smooth transition – I think smoother than any of us thought. Barney (Visser, team owner) had planned on running the first 10 or so races and just being like so-so and trying to figure things out – maybe stumble a little bit until we kind of got everything ironed out, we got the cars built up and kind of got things figured out, but really we came out of the box strong at Daytona,” Truex Jr. said Friday at Michigan International Speedway.

“There’s a lot of people to credit for that. Obviously everybody at Toyota, David Wilson, Andy Graves – all those folks, everybody at TRD (Toyota Racing Development) and especially JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing). They’re obviously a big part of what we’re doing. The partnership has worked really well. All their crew chiefs, engineers, really just everyone from Coach (Joe Gibbs) to the bottom really just welcomed in our team, said, ‘Here’s how we’re going to do things. We’re going to open book. We’re going to share everything,’ and that’s been a big part of the reason we got off the ground so quick.”

Truex Jr. has opened up the 2016 season with a series of strong performances albeit many plagued by mechanical issues, pit road mistakes and bad luck. He was finally able to shake that streak two weeks ago with a dominating run to win the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Now as the Sprint Cup Series hits the summer stretch, which includes a lower aerodynamic rules package to be employed this weekend at Michigan, Truex Jr. believes his team is prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.

“It’s been good,” he said of this year’s on track product. “I think the racing has been great. We obviously still have some challenges at certain tracks and you’re always going to have that just based on tracks all being different, but pleased with what we’ve seen so far this year I feel like.”

Truex Jr. does have a slight benefit this weekend at Michigan since he took part in a Goodyear tire test at the track last month that incorporated the rules package in play for Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400.

“It was a short test because of rain, but we did learn a few things,” he said. “I think the biggest thing was just off-throttle time was more and middle of the corner speed was slower and straightaway speed was a little faster. Just more in the same direction we went from last year’s package to what we’re racing now.

“Definitely another step in a direction we’re all looking for so should be a lot of fun. I think everybody is really excited and optimistic about the weekend to see what it’s all about and learn about the new package and try to figure it out. Hopefully the racing will be what we hope and it should be a lot of fun.”

Motor Racing Network - "The Voice of NASCAR" - will have live coverage of Sunday's FireKeepers Casino 400, beginning at 12 p.m. (ET) - with live streaming at MRN.com and on the MRN App.