NASCAR: Martin Truex Jr. denies context surrounding Hendrick Motorsports quote

Martin Truex Jr. has denied the context surrounding the quote that he made regarding Hendrick Motorsports’ recent strength in the NASCAR Cup Series being “just one race”.

After Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman took the checkered flag at Chicagoland Speedway in this past Sunday’s Camping World 400 for the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, questions surrounded Hendrick Motorsports and whether or not they are truly “back” after struggling mightily over the last few years.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson, William Byron and Chase Elliott also had a solid race, finishing in a season-high fourth, eighth and 11th place, respectively, further pushing forward this debate.

One driver who reportedly gave his take on the matter was Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., who finished the 267-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Chicagoland Speedway oval in Joliet, Illinois in ninth place in his #19 Toyota, and he did not seem to think that Hendrick Motorsports’ strength in this particular race was anything more than that — just one race.

Here is what Truex Jr. said about the matter, according to Motorsport.

"“I think it’s just one race. You look at these things and you come to these tracks now with this package and every track is just so different. I can’t stress it enough how different it is. You only get two 50-minute practices and we came here, and we were totally lost for the first whole practice and then two-thirds of the second practice and it’s like, if we had another 30 minutes, we could have been so much better.“It’s one of those things where all these tracks are so different, and they want just a different package all together that the first time here is hard to hit it. Clearly, (Hendrick Motorsports) hit it out of the park because they were fast right off the truck.”"

Truex Jr. did not deny saying what he said, and let’s be honest, how could he?

However, he did deny the idea that he meant what many people have been led to believe that he meant. Here is how he responded to the initial report about his statement.

As evidenced by the quote itself, perhaps “performance gain” was not the right word to use to describe it. He was clearly comparing the performance of Joe Gibbs Racing to Hendrick Motorsports in this particular race — and what a disparity there was favoring the latter — and his tweet shows that it wasn’t like Hendrick Motorsports just came out of nowhere to win that race.

Hendrick Motorsports cars have definitely been faster as of late, especially compared to where they were for most of last season and at the start of the 2019 season. They have clearly made progress — that much is hardly even up for debate — so it would make sense for Truex Jr. to have recognized this even prior to Bowman’s victory.

The average finishing position of Bowman himself, after starting the season with nine consecutive finishes of 11th place or lower, is a series-best 6.63 over the last eight races, and he has recorded four top two finishes in this span.

Regardless of what Martin Truex Jr. meant or what he says he meant, or both if they are truly one in the same, how will this situation play out moving forward? Will Hendrick Motorsports continue to make good progress and catch the likes of Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske, the two dominant teams through the first 17 races of the 36-race 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season?