MARTIN TRUEX JR, No. 19 Auto Owners Insurance Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
How important was the win tonight?
“I’m really excited to win here at Richmond. I’ve always really enjoyed this track. I’ve always loved coming here. The short track win – everybody kept asking me when it was going to happen. Tonight we didn’t have the best car, but we’ve lost here with the best car a bunch of times. We just fought, we battled. Thanks to Auto Owners – a lot of Auto Owners people here. Toyota Owners 400 – to win here in a Toyota was huge. I’ve got my buddy up there. I just won him 10 grand. We’re just really excited. Everybody at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) is doing a great job and with Toyota. Just a blessing to drive these race cars and have an awesome team. We’ve been chipping away at it and hopefully we can get better from here on out.”
How concerned were you about Joey Logano catching you at the end?
“I was struggling the last 40 laps. I had no front turn. I was just real, real tight in that last run. You just had to hold them off. Being out front was important tonight. Thanks to the pit crew, they kept us out there. They had a tough year and a tough week last week. We beat up on them pretty good all week after Bristol and they had the best stop of the year tonight. Just really proud of everyone. Really, really happy to get our first win with (Joe) Gibbs and definitely our first short track win is pretty awesome too.”
Explain to everyone how disciplined you have to be with drivers closing in on you in the closing laps.
“It’s really tough, Jeff (Gordon). I don’t know how you explain it other than it’s like driving in the snow and trying to hit a line of six to eight inches in the center of the corner. It’s just – it’s lack of grip. The car wasn’t doing anything I wanted to do that last run. We got really, really tight. Being out front was really the key and trying to do all I could to not screw up and hold those guys off. It was definitely really, really difficult.”
Toyota Racing PR
