When you lose 218 races in a row you may just want to give up on racing, right?
Not Martin Truex, Jr., who finally was able to get his first win of the season recently at Sonoma Raceway in California by finishing in first place for the first time after 218 straight races – the second longest losing streak in NASCAR history. Bill Elliot still owns the infamous record of 226 straight.
Truex, a Mayetta, NJ native, was relieved to get the win. He had come very close to getting it the week before in Michigan when he finished in third place.
“The first feeling I had was, ‘Ok, finally, you got it out of the way,’” Truex, Jr. said. “More importantly, it’s nice to see hard work finally pay off. We worked so hard as a team in the past, and to get where we are now, and we just kept feeling like something was missing and we had a few chances earlier in the year, but we finally pulled it out.”
Winning Sunday wasn’t just an accomplishment for him but for his pit crew, which had hardly experienced what is was like to be in victory lane.
“Seeing all those guys faces in victory lane and having a great race car makes it all worth it,’’ Truex said. “A lot of the guys on the team were able to experience their first win, because most of them have never experienced that before and it means so much for me to be able to take them in there and to know what it’s like.”
Truex, Jr. may have not won any races in a while, but he says he never let it affect him . He felt that it was only a matter of time before he was able to get the win he desperately wanted.
“My confidence was never really shaken,” Truex said. “If we kept our nose to the grindstone we can accomplish what we want.”