NASCAR: Possible Martin Truex Jr. landing spot ruled out for 2025?

Martin Truex Jr. retired from full-time NASCAR Cup Series competition upon the conclusion of the 2024 season, but he made clear that he still plans to compete in the sport from time to time, including at the Cup level.

He plans to compete in the 2025 season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, a race he has yet to win in 20 previous attempts.

Though the team remains to be seen, confirmation has already been made that Cole Pearn is set to serve as his crew chief.

The pair won a championship together in 2017 when they were with Furniture Row Racing, the Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated organization which shut down after the 2018 season. That shutdown prompted Truex's move to Joe Gibbs' team, and Pearn came with him for the 2019 season. In five years together, they tallied four Championship 4 appearances and 24 race victories.

Truex to 23XI not an option?

It was initially thought that Truex could run the 2025 Daytona 500 in a fourth car for 23XI Racing. The move would allow him to remain with Toyota and with a Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated team.

But although the Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan-owned team plan to expand to three full-time entries for the 2025 season, having added a third car for Riley Herbst alongside Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, it does not appear that they will add a fourth car for the 67th annual "Great American Race", according to Sportsnaut.

While Truex stated that Joe Gibbs Racing, his team for the last six seasons of his full-time career, are in charge of handling his deal and getting him in a car, they cannot expand for the race themselves, as they already run four full-time entries. Teams are not allowed to enter five cars in any race.

The team could theoretically work with another organization to get Truex in a car. But Legacy Motor Club, which famously did not opt for a Joe Gibbs Racing technical alliance when they switched from Chevrolet to Toyota last year, are the only other Toyota team in the series.

Legacy Motor Club run two full-time entries for John Hunter Nemechek and Erik Jones and are reportedly planning to enter a third car for team co-owner Jimmie Johnson in the Daytona 500 for the third year in a row. Whether they could add a fourth – and a second without a charter – remains to be seen.

It should be noted that, amid the ongoing antitrust-related legal dispute stemming from 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports opting not to sign NASCAR's new charter agreement, the sport is seemingly prepared to proceed with 30 charters as opposed to the usual 36. This means that, with field sizes still capped at 40 cars, there would be 10 open spots at Daytona instead of the usual four.

Even if the two outstanding charters from Stewart-Haas Racing, which NASCAR failed to recognize as having been transferred to 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports amid their respective expansions, become accounted for, that still leaves the field with eight open spots, twice as many as usual.

The 2025 Daytona 500 is scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 16, and it is set to be broadcast live on Fox from Daytona International Speedway beginning at 2:30 p.m. ET.