There is some doubt that Martin Truex Jr. will ever step foot in a race car again after November 10, despite expressing interest in both the occasional NASCAR Xfinity Series start for Joe Gibbs Racing at his retirement announcement.
His teammate from the past six years, Denny Hamlin, also co-owns a NASCAR Cup Series program and has expressed enthusiasm over fielding a car for Truex in the Daytona 500, a race he has never won, or any other start the native New Englander wants to enter.
There is some skepticism that it would happen, however.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” says his longtime friend, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who knows Truex has a propensity to get lost at sea in all the best possible ways when he no longer has racing obligations.
But Truex said he really is open to doing a little bit of racing next season and maybe at his home track, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where the series races this weekend.
“Yeah, probably; We will see,” Truex said. “I haven’t really looked into all of that and started the scheduling process. I’m just kind of focused on what we are doing here, but eventually, we will figure it out and it is definitely a place I would like to come back to.”
He says Hamlin has even checked in away from the track over the past week to express sincere interest in making whatever Truex wants to do happen.
“We just kind of started talking because he threw it out there in the media center and we’ve chatted a few times this week,” Truex said. “A few things to figure out, but it seems like we will be able to do some races if we want, which will be awesome. Excited about that. It is really cool that Denny did that and reached out this week. It means a lot to me.”
Hamlin means it too.
“Yeah, I mean, I think that if we have those conversations, I certainly probably would like to know (how many races he wants to do), that way I can make sure I’m staffed properly and certainly anything that we did, we wouldn’t half-ass anything,” Hamlin told NASCAR.com on Saturday. “I’d make sure that everything is capable of winning from top to bottom and I think he knows that.”
Meanwhile, Truex says the rest of this season is now business as usual, and that he doesn’t really feel any reduced pressure from finally making the decision to retire after teasing it for two-plus years and a series of one-year contracts.
“I feel like I’m pretty relaxed generally,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know. I guess. If it comes off that way, sure. I feel relieved after I finally made a decision after thinking about it for two years. I guess, yeah.”
And this is his home track, where his first win on the Magic Mile last year meant a great deal to him, and would again this weekend too.
“I think winning here in general is a really big deal,” Truex said. “Last year was just huge for me personally. My family – what this place has meant to us over the years, so to finally – it was a frustrating thing to come here year after year after year – and feel like it got away again, so many times we were in position to win, or we were right there leading laps and things.
“It has always been a really good track for me and just not having that win for so long was really, really frustrating, so yeah, it was a really, really big one last year and I think to be able to go back-to-back would be awesome. That is what we are looking to do, and we are excited to be here. The guys are fired up and I feel good about it. I’m looking forward to going out there in practice and seeing what we’ve got.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.